Why does RAM disk prevent files from downloading?

It's been a while since I've used the XFast RAM utility, but as I recall it can be configured to use the RAM drive for various purposes. For example, as the temporary folder for download files is one way to use it.

If the XFast RAM drive is full, meaning no more space to hold a file, then that would explain why a large download would fail to be saved. Given the many ways to download files, such as via an Internet browser among many others, the details about how you are downloading files matters in figuring out what is wrong.

Another factor is whether or not you are restoring/maintaining the contents of the XFast RAM drive after the PC is shutdown, if you shut it off. Many variables to consider about this, and we have zero information about your XFast RAM drive.

What mother board are you using? How much of your PC's memory is allocated to the RAM drive? How much free space is available on the RAM drive? How much memory do you have in the PC? How do you have the RAM drive configured for your usage?

zatff wrote: I had not used it before but re-installed all the utilities for the ASrock Z77 Fatality 1 Pro motherboard after I replaced the hard drive with a ADATA 480 SSD and it must have been added then.  I have 16GB of GSkill RAM and I-5-3570 3.4 GHZ CPU.  I discovered it when trouble shooting why MCAfee would not install after a dozen tries.  The virtual disk was very small I think or too small anyway to handle the download for installation.  McAfee installed fine after I deleted the RAM drive. I am wondering now if it would be good idea to reinstall it and set it up to a larger size like 2-4 GB.  I read it can help reduce wear on a SSD but other view that it was not necessary. I know little about using a RAM drive or setting it up to be helpful.

That's basically what I thought. The default RAM disk size and amount allocated to the download folder was to small to accommodate the file you were trying to download.

Think of the XFast RAM drive as a small but very fast drive used for very short term storage of files. This "drive" is created out of your system DRAM memory, which is faster than any permanent storage device available today. The drawback of this drive is all of it contents are lost forever every time we shutdown the PC, or the PC looses AC power.

The XFast RAM drive can be configured to save its contents to a standard SSD or HDD on your PC when the PC is shutdown. That slows down the shutdown time a bit while its contents are written to a disk, and takes some time when the PC is started to restore the contents of the RAM drive from the disk. Whether or not that is useful depends upon how you use the RAM drive.

The usual best usage of the XFast RAM drive is as a temporary storage area for program or driver files that you install on your PC, but don't care to save the installation file. Of course you can save it to a permanent disk. With an installation program in the RAM drive, when you extract and/or run it, it will be read at a much higher speed than from any SSD or HDD, which will shorten the overall installation time.

Another good usage of the XFast RAM drive is to use it to store a program you run all the time, every time you boot the PC. This really works best only for simple programs that use one executable file. Your Internet browser program uses many separate files, and is not a good candidate for running from a RAM drive, although it can be done. It is possible to put the browser's cache in the RAM drive, which will speed up the loading of website pages.

The best way to learn about the XFast RAM drive is to create one of at least 1GB in size, and learn about and experiment with its configuration options. The configuration options include suggestions for using the RAM drive.

The fear of wearing out SSDs by writing to it is not a problem at all. I have "old" SSDs that were SATA II speed drives, and they work fine today. Write endurance testing of SSDs showed that SSDs will last at least up to 100 Terabytes written, and most last three+ times that. It takes a while to get even one Terabyte written to a SSD, with typical PC usage.

Think about this: The NAND (storage) chips used in SSDs have a finite lifespan, as does everything else. We can find that spec for the NAND chips, so we in general know what it is. It's also the worst case situation, which usually does not happen. That is also a guarantee by the NAND chip manufacture.

What is the lifespan of the magnetic material used in HDDs? That is not given in their specs. So we don't know what that lifespan is. We have no guarantee of the lifespan of that material.

So why do we worry more about something whose lifespan we know of, instead of something whose lifespan we know almost nothing about?