TekRevue notes that RAM Disks, as the name indicates, are logical storage volumes created using a computers memory (RAM) instead of a traditional hard drive or solid state drive.
Back in the day, RAM disks were very popular, and support for creating them was a standard feature of the Classic Mac OS. I ran for a year or so in the mid-late ’90s on a PowerBook 5300 booted from a RAM disk. Speedier than the poky hard drive, and stone quiet with the HDD spun down.
RAM Disk benefits are still easy to understand since RAM operates at speeds far beyond current hard drive capability. However the big negative is that data stored in RAM is not persistent, meaning that it evaporates when the RAM loses power due to a reboot, shutdown, or power loss.
Despite this drawback, TekRevue notes that there are still circumstances where you can greatly benefit from the speed of a RAM Disk, such as using it as a Photoshop scratch area, manipulating large video files, or testing complicated databases. If you’ve got good backups of your data and you’re willing to risk losing the contents of a RAM Disk in the event of a power failure, setting one up is easy and fun.
You can create a RAM disk via the Terminal or with a third party app. There are several apps that perform this function, but Tek Revue chose RAM Disk Creator from programmer Florian Bogner.
You can check it out at: