What's Faster RamDisk or SSD?

An average computer's RAM will always be faster than every modern solid-state drive on the market. RAM disks are predicated on this advantage, by converting a computer's RAM into a hyperfast virtual drive. Just at first blush RAM disks are very easy to make a case for, performance benchmarks all across the board prove just how much faster it actually is at reading data from a RAM disk in comparison to even the fastest SSDs on the market

Boons

To create a RAM disk, one requires the installation of a third-party program that can create a virtual drive in Windows. There are many softwares running the gamut from freeware to paid that can suit your needs. The RAM disk program, upon activation, will  reserve a section of your RAM. For example, if you had 6 GB of files in your RAM disk, the disk would take up 6 GB of RAM. All the files on your disk would be stored in your RAM.

The benefits of installed programs on a RAM disk, is that you'd have near-instant load times because the data would already be stored in the fastest memory possible. This can be a godsend for people who code or use graphics card heavy applications. Saving a file would be near instantaneous as it would just be copied to another portion of the RAM. This results in really fast load times of applications and faster file read/write speeds for data saved in the RAM disk.

Caveats

There is a huge caveat to keep in mind though. RAM is volatile memory.  Computer users in Bangladesh are no strangers to abrupt power outages and if you lack a generator or UPS, you will lose all the contents of your RAM disk. This effectively means that nothing of critical importance can be stored on a RAM disk. 

This also applies for every time you shutdown your computer; all the data from your RAM disk will be wiped clean. Since RAM isn't persistent, every time you power off your computer you have to backup any and all important files from your RAM disk to your actual hard drive when you shut down your computer. 

For example, if you have After Effects installed to your RAM disk. You'd have to save a copy of your RAM disk to your computer's hard drive to ensure you don't lose the installation file. So if you are using a RAM disk it's a good rule of thumb to save frequently or at the very least remember to do a full backup before you power down. When you turn back on your computer to resume your project, the third-party RAM disk program would have to read the RAM disk image from your hard drive and load it back into RAM.

Verdict

To make a long story short, the trade off getting faster program-load times at the expense of longer boot-up times. Once you load an application, it will stay present in your memory for quick loading later. This is a great option to explore in the modern era where 16 GB ram cartridges are quickly becoming the norm. One of the biggest gripes with modern graphics intensive applications is render and loading times. RAM disks are the perfect solution to that for the conscientious and careful computer user.