I have an old 850 megabyte hard drive, and only 256 megs of RAM, I was wondering if I could use this hard drive as RAM instead of wasting a bunch of money on an expensive RAM chip.
2007-01-14 14:16:52 · 8 answers · asked by chris 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
Not possible.
2007-01-14 14:21:03 · answer #1 · answered by INOA 7 · 1⤊ 3⤋
Click on the control panel in Windows XP or 98/ME.
Look under performance tab
Now for XP do
A1) Press the settings button and then click on the advanced tab
A2) Now press "change" under the "virtual memory" label of the window under XP
A3) Select the hard drive you want to use as memory (AKA your 850 meg old drive)
A4) Now click on custom size and set the maximum and minimum size to the same number (up to as large as the entire drive IE 850 megs if you please)
A5) Click the "set" button
A6) Click "ok"
For 98/ME do
B1) Click the "virtual memory" button
B2) Click "let me specify my own virtual memory settings"
B3) Specify your 850 meg hard disk by clicking the drop-down list beside the "hard disk" label
B4) Now set the maximum and minimum size to the same number (up to as large as the entire drive IE 850 megs if you please)
B5) Click "ok"
I'm a Masters of Science in Information Systems...please ignore any junk on this forum that says you can not use disk as memory that's far from the truth.
What you will notice is that your computer will be faster as a result as using your disk as virtual memory. Just make sure your 850meg disk is defragmented and know that, for example, the higher RPM your disk has (7200+ is optimal), the more performance gain you will get...
Even though, as other answerers have alluded to, though a performance improvement, it is obviously not nearly as fast as simply installing more memory (so if the performance increase by using your drive as virtual memory does not satisfy you, buy memory, preferrably at an online site with a proven reliability record and good warranties (in the odd case the memory does not work) like egghead.com, where RAM chips often aren't very expensive).
Best luck!
2007-01-14 22:42:18 · answer #2 · answered by M S 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You already are, so to speak. There is a system file which is written to already on one of your hard drives, and this is called a "system cache".
The problem is that it's extremely slow, whereas RAM chips are faster. If you're already using this machine, and the hard drive light is spinning and working like a big dog...more than you think is normal, that's the "system cache" being written to and read from.
2007-01-14 22:22:11 · answer #3 · answered by Jeff K 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
ram is super cheap. a hard drive for memory is very very slow.
go buy the chip.
2007-01-14 22:25:01 · answer #4 · answered by ignoramus 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Virtual memory usually shows up as the swap file which windows creates automatically on the system drive (usually C:)
Check here for great prices on memory (I just bought 1GB PC-3200 - 400MHz) for $86.00 delivered.
http://www.pricewatch.com
2007-01-14 22:21:26 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
If you have ever seen what a memory card looks like, it seems to me that you can't substitute a hard disk for the card.
2007-01-14 22:22:36 · answer #6 · answered by JiveSly 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
A ram chip isn't expensive!
2007-01-14 22:20:29 · answer #7 · answered by White Shooting Star of HK 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Windows OS already does that. It's called virtual memory.
2007-01-14 22:21:18 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋