A ramdisk is a filesystem that resides in (volatile) random access memory. As such, any data written to that filesystem does not remain when the computer is turned off, unless the changes to the ramdisk are written elsewhere to a filesystem residing in non-volatile memory.

Ramdisks are used for scratch filesystems (where changes need not be kept), and in a kiosk-style device where any changes made to a system are not committed and the original configuration is to be loaded each time the computer is turned on.

Ramdisks are used also for certain Linux distributions (such as Damn Small Linux and Feather Linux), when they behave as Live CDs. They are also used in distributions residing on bootable business card media.

Because the filesystem resides in RAM, there can be a significant speed boost compared to hard drive-based filesystems.

See Also

• ToRAM
• Cenatek - ramdisk creation program for Windows
• RAMDisk - free and paid Windows versions

External links

• LinuxFocus