Can I use a RAM disk to speed up my IDE?

Question

Duplicate:

RAMDrive for compiling - is there such a thing?

I have an idea how to speed up my IDE.

I want to create a RAM disk and move my solution onto this virtual disk.
I think that this can speed up the IDE because RAM is much faster than a HDD.

Has anyone done this before?

PS: I think, when I have some documents in my program(real world) which are used frequently(for example some document templates) it could be good idea to move these documents onto a RAM disk as well to speed up I/O. Am I wrong?

If power is a problem, a UPS could solve it.

Answer 1

Under Linux /dev/shm is a ramdisk so you might have some quick success using that as your compile destination (easier than rsyncing your source etc, also has the benefit, if you have one, of reducing any wear on an SSD in your machine).

Answer 2

Honestly, if you have Vista/Windows Server 2008 x64 and you jam your workstation with 4 to 8 GB of RAM, for most tasks, everything will be in cache or stored by SuperFetch, which will be a lot easier to manage and just about as high performance as a RAM disk. The RAM disk won't do a thing for you if you're starving your other system RAM to make it work.

BTW, I tried your suggestion a couple of years ago. While it technically worked, copying the necessary data to the RAM disk on every boot took too long and was a pain.

Answer 3

I do remember reading about doing this with netbeans a while ago. This article has quite a good guide on doing it in linux.

NetBeans on speed

Currently can't find an article on how to do it in windows, however I know it's possible.