Article Inspired by Conversation with @Minion-Queen
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Editorial note:
You have "Windows 7 and 8/8.1". This should be written "Windows 7, 8 and 8.1."
Using the 8/8.1 form is inconsistent here and implies something that isn't true. This is a three item list with all three items being peers. Windows 8/8.1 is not a thing, but a lot of people write that because they are unaware that Windows 8.1 is a full fledged OS on its own.
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I had no idea that things on your desktop are automatically cached to RAM. When did they start doing that? It kind of makes sense, give you effectively a RAM disk to use easily, but as many Linux systems throw /tmp into RAM, but without people really knowing this, it is pretty surprising.
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Just a random thread, but it disagrees. I would be surprised if this were true as nearly everyone would have all of their memory used up as desktops are full of files these days.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/38772-63-desktop-icons-loaded
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Overall the article is pretty good. But be careful that an example doesn't derail the point.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I had no idea that things on your desktop are automatically cached to RAM. When did they start doing that?
I never knew that either? That is amazing and would certainly explain why users sometimes complain about poor performance! That would be a reason to discourage people to dump everything on their desktop. But that would be the only reason. Otherwise, my view is, I don't like users doing it, but if that's what they like and it's not hurting anyone, I'll do my best to accommodate them.
To take @thanksajdotcom's doctor analogy - sometimes my users are a patient (when their PC isn't performing), but sometimes they are a customer. If the desktop causes performance issues, then I'll be their doctor and tell them not to do it. If the desktop doesn't cause performance issues, then they'll be my customer. Kind of like "if you want extra cheese on your burger, then I'm happy to do that for you, sir", but "if you want cyanide on your burger them I'm going to have to say 'no".
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@scottalanmiller said:
I had no idea that things on your desktop are automatically cached to RAM. When did they start doing that? It kind of makes sense, give you effectively a RAM disk to use easily, but as many Linux systems throw /tmp into RAM, but without people really knowing this, it is pretty surprising.
I've heard this from a few people. From the research I've done it never seemed to actually be the case. The only thing that was put into RAM were the objects in the Startup folder and the system services.
Now to A.J.'s point. Placing restored files on the desktop really doesn't make sense as you can easily drag/drop those files into the correct library location.
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@coliver said:
I've heard this from a few people. From the research I've done it never seemed to actually be the case. The only thing that was put into RAM were the objects in the Startup folder and the system services.
It definitely has the sound of an urban legend. Can't figure out why they would cripple the system that way and why there wouldn't be all kinds of confirmation from them if that was done.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
I've heard this from a few people. From the research I've done it never seemed to actually be the case. The only thing that was put into RAM were the objects in the Startup folder and the system services.
It definitely has the sound of an urban legend. Can't figure out why they would cripple the system that way and why there wouldn't be all kinds of confirmation from them if that was done.
You can test it yourself actually... throw a big file onto your desktop and monitor RAM usage... I just did it with the ~5GB Fedora 18 ISO. It used 200Mb of RAM for the copy and then went back down to what I was using before.
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@coliver Actually that could still cause it to cache because of the transfer. Need to reboot to really be sure. But if it doesn't do it in the transfer, it definitely doesn't load it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver Actually that could still cause it to cache because of the transfer. Need to reboot to really be sure. But if it doesn't do it in the transfer, it definitely doesn't load it.
I didn't see that behavior, but you're right that could happen.
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This post is deleted! -
When you read the article and post a question about it, then read down the comments and see it's been asked below. Sigh.
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What's odd, generally with IT stuff there is an answer generally accepted by the community as a whole. Things like RAID 5 is bad. This however has no consensus. Even though it seems to be fairly easy to test.
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@coliver said:
What's odd, generally with IT stuff there is an answer generally accepted by the community as a whole. Things like RAID 5 is bad. This however has no consensus. Even though it seems to be fairly easy to test.
Even worse, is it makes a certain kind of terrible sense. It'd be useful to have a space where you put your working files that's a RAM drive mirrored to physical disk. Write out the changes every 30 seconds or something so you don't thrash I/O on the disk and still get all the benefits of insta-run stuff.
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@MattSpeller said:
@coliver said:
What's odd, generally with IT stuff there is an answer generally accepted by the community as a whole. Things like RAID 5 is bad. This however has no consensus. Even though it seems to be fairly easy to test.
Even worse, is it makes a certain kind of terrible sense. It'd be useful to have a space where you put your working files that's a RAM drive mirrored to physical disk. Write out the changes every 30 seconds or something so you don't thrash I/O on the disk and still get all the benefits of insta-run stuff.
Doesn't the system already kind of do this in a more automatic way? It caches documents/files that you are currently working on? Having a central "RAM Disk" to do this would be gimping the operating system automatic processes.
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@coliver said:
Doesn't the system already kind of do this in a more automatic way?
If it does I'd be interested to know about it. Obviously it does when you open the file, but that's what we're trying to avoid (the comparatively slow disk I/O).
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@MattSpeller said:
@coliver said:
What's odd, generally with IT stuff there is an answer generally accepted by the community as a whole. Things like RAID 5 is bad. This however has no consensus. Even though it seems to be fairly easy to test.
Even worse, is it makes a certain kind of terrible sense. It'd be useful to have a space where you put your working files that's a RAM drive mirrored to physical disk. Write out the changes every 30 seconds or something so you don't thrash I/O on the disk and still get all the benefits of insta-run stuff.
I've been doing that since the Amiga days. Just get an SSD today, though.
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@MattSpeller said:
@coliver said:
Doesn't the system already kind of do this in a more automatic way?
If it does I'd be interested to know about it. Obviously it does when you open the file, but that's what we're trying to avoid (the comparatively slow disk I/O).
You want tiering with an auto-load to RAM disk, I guess?
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@scottalanmiller said:
I had no idea that things on your desktop are automatically cached to RAM. When did they start doing that? It kind of makes sense, give you effectively a RAM disk to use easily, but as many Linux systems throw /tmp into RAM, but without people really knowing this, it is pretty surprising.
The Wallpaper has been for years, Never heard of the desktop itself being in ram though.
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@scottalanmiller said:
You want tiering with an auto-load to RAM disk, I guess?
Y'all get so complicated lol
I'd take a simple folder that's mirrored to disk. Mirroring is important to me because I usually care about keeping what I work with, but like Office's auto-save it could be something basic like twice a minute.
Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day setting up a RAM drive and writing a script. Sigh.
