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    Virtual Ram Question

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Centreri, Aug 2, 2010.

  1. Centreri

    Centreri Notebook Enthusiast

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    I bought me a Vaio Z for college with 4GB of RAM, then I found out about this thing called Virtual Ram, where apparently the OS allocates HD space as RAM if needed. I was wondering - is this actually an effective replacement?

    It's not ideal, but the Z supposedly has a very, very fast hard drive (SDD's in Raid 0), so I was wondering how much of a performance hit it would be if I had to use that (in Solidworks, for instance).
     
    Centreri, Aug 2, 2010
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  2. newsposter

    newsposter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Paging space and/or virtual memory does NOT replace Real Memory, it merely augments it. It's not a new development, been around for decades.

    You should read articles on the subject at wikipedia, toms hardware, anandtech, a few other places. Easier for you to take some time to read there than to ask about two dozen serial questions here over the course of a week or more.

    key words/terms for you to search on are paging space and virtual memory.
     
    newsposter, Aug 2, 2010
    #2
  3. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Memory is still much, much faster than SSDs, let alone HDDs. You should always try to use up as much RAM as your system has since unused RAM is wasted RAM.
     
    sgogeta4, Aug 2, 2010
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  4. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Virtual RAM does not affect performance, for better or worse. Except, of course, when you run too many programs to the point that 4GB isn't enough...then virtual RAM keeps your system from crashing.
     
    Greg, Aug 2, 2010
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