Use External hard drive/pen drive as ram?

[MoJoMax]

I know that windows already has a feature called ReadyBoost, But that

really does not give you more ram. Is there a way to use a external drive

as real memory? For example if the drive is 8GB then i could use 6 GB and use it as ram..

 

[Poet129]

3 minutes ago, MoJoMax said:

I know that windows already has a feature called ReadyBoost, But that

really does not give you more ram. Is there a way to use a external drive

as real memory? For example if the drive is 8GB then i could use 6 GB and use it as ram..

 

A Pagefile is the best way. Keep in mind it will likely (almost definitely) be slower than ram it won't slow down your normal ram, but it will work for programs that need a lot of memory but that do not need it to be fast. Also DO NOT unplug the drive while the system is running.

[MoJoMax]

@Poet129 Yeah but that's just fake ram,

It only works in programs 

that have can run with the current

ram you have and it only does

a slight boost but it does

not work if you barely you 

have enough ram to run it.

[Action_Johnson]

Just download more RAM

[Poet129]

5 minutes ago, MoJoMax said:

@Poet129 Yeah but that's just fake ram,

It only works in programs 

that have can run with the current

ram you have and it only does

a slight boost but it does

not work if you barely you 

have enough ram to run it.

Sadly last time I checked you can't hook any storage device not made for a ram slot in place of actual ram. And that is the only way to get the system to recognize it as ram to my knowledge. What program are you trying to run anyway?

[MoJoMax]

@Action_Johnson Only in the year 2077

[MoJoMax]

2 minutes ago, Poet129 said:

 What program are you trying to run anyway?

Most programs run well on my pc, It's just one program

that no one knows about. When i launch the program I can see 

the main window but it just says that i need 5GB of ram, but i have 4GB.
and it just closes

And also It's ProDAD erazr.

[Poet129]

4 minutes ago, MoJoMax said:

Most programs run well on my pc, It's just one program

that no one knows about. When i launch the program I can see 

the main window but it just says that i need 5GB of ram, but i have 4GB.
and it just closes

And also It's ProDAD erazr.

It might be it looking at the amount of actual ram you have, so might be able to try a registry edit but no guarantees. (I'm not sure where the entry is but I've done a similar thing with the CPU, but it DOESN'T increase performance.)

[MoJoMax]

@Poet129 How can i make the program think i have 5 GB and not 4gb?

I also don't want to cause conflicts with other programs.

I just want to force the program to use 4GB.

 

[Poet129]

4 minutes ago, MoJoMax said:

@Poet129 How can i make the program think i have 5 GB and not 4gb?

I also don't want to cause conflicts with other programs.

I just want to force the program to use 4GB.

 

Paired with a pagefile for the actual ram usage as it is automatically offloaded. All you should need is a registry edit, but I'm not sure where the entry would be if it even has one. Have you tried opening the program yet or trying a regular pagefile?

[MoJoMax]

@Poet129 As i mentioned it says i do not have enough ram when i run it.

[Poet129]

2 minutes ago, MoJoMax said:

@Poet129 As i mentioned it says i do not have enough ram when i run it.

Is the 4GB of ram before or after windows is loaded?

[MoJoMax]

@Poet129 In total i have 4gb no more.

[Poet129]

10 minutes ago, MoJoMax said:

@Poet129 In total i have 4gb no more.

Have you tried a page file yet? I understand this isn't making it ram but it might work.

[MoJoMax]

6 minutes ago, DriftMan said:

so would it be anything that isn't ram

Not that i mean it's fake.

It's non priority ram and is only used when the computer 

is getting slow, etc

[MoJoMax]

Just now, Poet129 said:

Have you tried a page file yet? I understand this isn't making it ram but it might work.

i have set the page file to 4000 MB

but it was previously set to "System Managed Size"
You would think that it will detect a program is requesting more ram and it will automatically give it more "ram", But that's impossible to happen

[Poet129]

Just now, MoJoMax said:

i have set the page file to 4000 MB

but it was previously set to "System Managed Size"
You would think that it will detect a program is requesting more ram and it will automatically give it more "ram", But that's impossible to happen

It is most likely a software limit then. The software is reading how much memory you have from somewhere and determining you don't have enough so if you knew where it was looking you could change how much it is seeing.

[MoJoMax]

@Poet129 I was seeing this post on here https://superuser.com/questions/1170803/how-to-trick-windows-10-into-thinking-it-has-more-ram-then-it-does.

But according to that you will need to make a custom .dll file and a bunch of de-compiling and stuff like that which i don't know exactly how to do.

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 minutes ago, MoJoMax said:

i have set the page file to 4000 MB

but it was previously set to "System Managed Size"
You would think that it will detect a program is requesting more ram and it will automatically give it more "ram", But that's impossible to happen

Why not get more ram? A 8gb stick of ram is cheap.

 

There is no easy way to fake more ram. You could run a vm with more ram, but its gonna be slow when it starts swapping out.

[MoJoMax]

99's stuff

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, MoJoMax said:

I know that windows already has a feature called ReadyBoost, But that

really does not give you more ram. Is there a way to use a external drive

as real memory? For example if the drive is 8GB then i could use 6 GB and use it as ram..

 

OK. Thats now how ram works. RAM is very fast compared to hard drives and SSD's. It directly communicates to the CPU. Paging files in Windows or the SWAP partition in Linux is a portion of disk space used to store stuff that cant fit in ram. If your computer is out of ram, it will become slower. Because mechanical hard drives are well SLOW. Depending on the external enclosure on your External Hard drive, it might be rated for slower speeds than what SATA is rated for. USB 3.0 is rated for 5 Gbps, while SATA III is rated for 6 Gbps. That really wont matter much because Mechanical Hard drives are slow as shit. 

 

To the point. If you need more RAM. Buy more RAM. Also Ready boost was meant to be used with Flash drives or SD cards I believe. 

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

To the point. If you need more RAM. Buy more RAM. Also Ready boost was meant to be used with Flash drives or SD cards I believe. 

yup. I tried this on my laptop for funnsies, it told me 'your pc is to fast for this - not available' lol 

[MoJoMax]

@SGT-AMD Reducing the  windows footprint is not necessary in my case.

The maximum usage of ram has gone to about to ~800MB 

when doing nothing intensive. Expect when i use a program like

chrome, It goes up like to 1GB