How It Works?

Normally Opera stores and manages all of its browsing cache on disk, which in most cases is just fine for daily use. Nonetheless, we want to squeeze every last ounce of power we can out of our favorite browser So, rather than opting to read and write to that slow IDE hard drive, or that speedy SATA drive, we chose to relocate where Opera stores its cache. We will be using the utility “RAMDisk” to create a fully functional hard drive complete with a FAT32 partition table  all loaded into the computers memory or RAM (Random Access Memory.)  This alone allows us to achieve faster read and write times surpassing by far the speed of any IDE or SATA hard drive currently on the market.

NOTE: although speeding up Operas cache will speed up most users browser, it may not speed up you’re browser. This is because this speed tip requires that you have a high speed internet connection; Although RAM is fast the cache speed is bottle necked by your network speed.

RAMDisk by Dataram

To do all of this, we will be using “RAMDisk” which is written by Dataram. You can find the download link here.

Dataram – RAMDisk is Freeware (up to 4GB disk size). It creates a virtual RAM drive, or block of memory, which your computer treats as if it were a disk drive. By storing files and programs into memory, you can speed up internet load times and disk-to-disk activities, accelerate databases and reduce compile times. Save and load features allow RAMDisk to appear as persistent storage, even through reboots.

Uses

The possible uses for this application appear to be seemingly endless. From speeding up Opera’s cache time to decreasing the compile time of your favorite IDE, some even go as far as to install an entire game on the RAMDisk drive… The performance is unbeatable… provided that you have sufficient RAM for the given task.

Using RAMDisk

After downloading and installing the free software from Dataram, open the “RAMDisk Configuration Utility” form the start menu. A slightly annoying ad will appear upon the application starting, however this is a small price to pay for such a lightweight and powerful tool. Perhaps someone or myself will conjure up a quick patch for it one day >:) So, for now we will just close it out and continue on configuring it to work with Opera.

Setting It Up

The setup of this application is fairly simple, as most of the options are just check boxes and file dialogues We don’t mind simplicity do we?

• Set the size in megabytes (MB) of RAM to use
• Choose “FAT32″ as the partition type
• Select “Windows boot sector” as the boot sector type

Now although Opera will run just fine the way we have it configured now, every time you shutdown your computer and close RAMDisk all of your precious web cache is lost, never to be found again in the he void of volatile memory O.o Say what?

Wikipedia – Volatile memory, also known as volatile storage, is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information…

Solving the dilemma however is no more than a few clicks here and some keystrokes there. Dataram’s software developers have kindly include the required options to save our memory to file when we don’t need it.

• Select and setup both the “Load” and “Save Image Settings”
• Choose a location to save to

Starting RAMDisk

Everything should be set at this point, regarding the “RAMDisk Configuration Utility” that is. All that remains is pressing the “Start RAMDisk” button!

Once the utility has installed its drivers we can now see that it has created a new hard drive and is ready for use. Almost there!

Configuring Opera

Now this is the easy part, just either click here or copy this link “opera:config#UserPrefs|CacheDirectory4” and browse to it with Opera.

FACT: You can also do it the hard way and just go to “opera:config” and search for “cache”

Opera Cache Directory Setting

All that’s left to do now is set the “Cache Directory4″ location to the location of the RAMDisk Image and enjoy your now even faster Opera web browser! In our case, RAMDisk happened to mount the drive to “E:\.”

Success!

Now, if you’ve made it this far, I’m gonna assume that you didn’t screw things up too much… Just kidding I’m sure you all did just fine ( You still haven’t sent me hate mail yet. :p or so I hope… )  though we probably should still make sure everything is working properly. If it has, you should see you new RAMDisk drive fill with a few files at first, of course you do have to run Opera first for it to generate some cache.

Performance!

Perhaps you may be left to ponder how much faster RAM is to a standard hard drive… Nah, just kidding, just to see how much faster the read and write speeds were I ran a quick little benchmark test of both my hard drive and RAMDisk drive. And as you may have already expected the RAM is unbelievably fast.

RAMDisk drive:

RAM Benchmark

Hard Drive:

HDD Benchmark

How It Works? Normally Opera stores and manages all of its browsing cache on disk, which in most cases is just fine for daily use. Nonetheless, we want to squeeze every last ounce of power we can out of our favorite browser :) So, rather than opting to read and write to that slow IDE hard drive, or that speedy SATA drive, we chose to relocate where Opera stores its cache. We will be using the utility "RAMDisk" to create a fully functional hard drive complete with a FAT32 partition table  all loaded into the computers memory or RAM (Random Access Memory.)  This alone allows us to achieve faster read and write times surpassing by far the speed of any IDE or SATA hard drive currently on the market. NOTE: although speeding up Operas cache will speed up most users browser, it may not speed up you're browser. This is because this speed tip requires that you have a high speed internet connection; Although RAM is fast the cache speed is bottle necked by your network speed. RAMDisk by Dataram To do all of this, we will be using "RAMDisk" which is written by Dataram. You can find the download link here. Dataram - RAMDisk is Freeware (up to 4GB disk size). It creates a virtual RAM drive, or block of memory, which your computer treats as if it were a disk drive. By storing files and programs into memory, you can speed up internet load times and disk-to-disk activities, accelerate databases and reduce compile times. Save and load features allow RAMDisk to appear as persistent storage, even through reboots. Uses The possible uses for this application appear to be seemingly endless. From speeding up Opera's cache time to decreasing the compile time of your favorite IDE, some even go as far as to install an entire game on the RAMDisk drive... The performance is unbeatable... provided that you have sufficient RAM for the given task. Using RAMDisk After downloading and installing the free software from Dataram, open the "RAMDisk Configuration Utility" form the start menu. A slightly annoying ad will appear upon the application starting, however this is a small price to pay for such a lightweight and powerful tool. Perhaps someone or myself will conjure up a quick patch for it one day >:) So, for now we will just close it out and continue on configuring it to work with Opera. Setting It Up The setup of this application is fairly simple, as most of the options are just check boxes and file dialogues :P We don't mind simplicity do we? Set the size in megabytes (MB) of RAM to use Choose "FAT32" as the partition type Select "Windows boot sector" as the boot sector type Now although Opera will run just fine the way we have it configured now, every time you shutdown your computer and close RAMDisk all of your precious web cache is lost, never to be found again in the he void of volatile memory O.o Say what? Wikipedia - Volatile memory, also known as volatile storage, is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information... Solving the dilemma however is no more than a few clicks here and some keystrokes there. Dataram's software developers have kindly include the required options to save our memory to file when we don't need it. Select and setup both the "Load" and "Save Image Settings" Choose a location to save to Starting RAMDisk Everything should be set at this point, regarding the "RAMDisk Configuration Utility" that is. All that remains is pressing the "Start RAMDisk" button! Once the utility has installed its drivers we can now see that it has created a new hard drive and is ready for use. Almost there! Configuring Opera Now this is the easy part, just either click here or copy this link "opera:config#UserPrefs|CacheDirectory4" and browse to it with Opera. FACT: You can also do it the hard way and just go to "opera:config" and search for "cache" [caption id="attachment_47" align="alignnone" width="645" caption="Opera Cache Directory Setting"][/caption] All that's left to do now is set the "Cache Directory4" location to the location of the RAMDisk Image and enjoy your now even faster Opera web browser! In our case, RAMDisk happened to mount the drive to "E:\." Success! Now, if you've made it this far, I'm gonna assume that you didn't screw things up too much... Just kidding :) I'm sure you all did just fine ( You still haven't sent me hate mail yet. :p or so I hope... )  though we probably should still make sure everything is working properly. If it has, you should see you new RAMDisk drive fill with a few files at first, of course you do have to run Opera first for it to generate some cache. Performance! Perhaps you may be left to ponder how much faster RAM is to a standard hard drive... Nah, just kidding, just to see how much faster the read and write speeds were I ran a quick little benchmark test of both my hard drive and RAMDisk drive. And as you may have already expected the RAM is unbelievably fast. RAMDisk drive: [caption id="attachment_48" align="alignnone" width="416" caption="RAM Benchmark"][/caption] Hard Drive: [caption id="attachment_49" align="alignnone" width="416" caption="HDD Benchmark"][/caption]