Topic: Install Chrome Cache folder to a RAM Disk for faster +20% browsing

[devnullius]

(finetuning this article: more to come about auto-saving: but strictly spoken, you don't need it)

Background: I'm annoyed having 128 GB of RAM but still have to wait for Chrome. Reason? Slow hard-drive (SATAII) bottleneck. So first thing I did (still need to reboot for test) is fixing Windows swapfile to a fixed size of 800 MB (minimum for bsod crash reports).

Can I do more to speed up Chrome? Is there  a way to tell chrome *not* to cache or cache to RAM? Strictly spoken, no. But do read on

Inspiration: http://pcunleashed.com/tips-and-tricks/how-to-use-ram-disk-to-speed-up-your-web-browsing-experience/

How to Use RAM Disk to Speed Up Your Web Browsing Experience, by admin
 
Most computer users with a moderate level of technical understanding recognize the term virtual memory or page file . RAM is cheap today - skimping on your RAM wouldn't save you much money. When RAM was expensive 5 years ago, though, putting a computer together with 1 GB on-board made sense.
Since Windows still needs a substantial amount of RAM to function smoothly, it is designed to improvise - it sets a section of the hard disk aside and uses it as if it were RAM. This is the computer's virtual memory. While this method works, it slows the computer down since. RAM disk is the exact opposite of virtual memory.
While using virtual memory requires making the computer believe that the hard disk is actually RAM, using RAM disk involves making the system believe that a part of a computers RAM is really a hard disk - a very fast one.
Systems turn set a part of their hard drives aside when they side have less RAM than they really need. This problem doesn't exist today, though - if anything, people have far more RAM than they will ever use. Even garden-variety computers these days, usually have at least 4 GB of RAM - they only use about half of it though. When you have a good bit of RAM on your computer, you can set the system to use the unused portion as a RAM disk - something that can speed up your system far more than any SSD could.

What does RAM disk do?

Ever wonder why all programs are copied to RAM before the CPU processes them? It's because RAM is very fast and can keep up with the CPU. If programs remained in the hard disk, the CPU would need to wait endlessly to get program coding from the plodding hard disk. When your programs live on a portion RAM set aside for RAM disk, you get to speed things along even more.
A bit of software is all you need for RAM disk

Most RAM disk utilities are free for personal use. SoftPerfect RAM Disk is an example of such free software. Its features include auto-loading RAM disk on startup and hard disk saving the contents of the RAM disk at any time and limitless RAM disk size.

A short example
Web browsers create a large number of temporary files. They set these aside on the hard disk for later use. If you set your browser to use your RAM disk instead of your HDD, these temporary files will be processed much faster.

Mozilla Firefox: To store Firefox's temp files on your RAM disk, you should launch the browser and then enter the string about:config in the address bar. When you click through any warnings, you'll see Firefox's settings. You should right-click anywhere among them and select New and then String Value. Enter the string browser.cache.disk.parent_directory in the name field. When prompted for a value, enter the drive letter for your RAM disk.

Internet Explorer: Click Tools and then Internet Options . Click Settings under Browsing history . Here, you will see the current location of the browser's temp files. Click Move Folder and then simply select the location on the RAM disk that you wish to use.

Google Chrome : There is no easy way to change the temp file location on Chrome. While it can be done, it is not recommended for the casual user. If you are tech-savvy and can manage to use command line and Group Policies, you can check out this link: ghacks.net/2010/10/19/how-to-change-google-chromes-cache-location-and-size.


There it is, a free and easy way for speeding up your web browsing by up to 20%.

As some of you know, I'm Chrome all the way (sandbox!). So how to speed up Chrome??

First, get this program: https://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/

Then you need to prepare Chrome. This is not an easy task and many (obsolete) articles exist. For me, trying them out just gave the following error for me: "cannot edit: error writing the value's new contents."

This did work for me... Just in case I did 1 registry edit: FROM: http://www.ghacks.net/2010/10/19/how-to-change-google-chromes-cache-location-and-size/

Instead of using parameters to set the cache location and size of the Chrome web browser, system administrators can also use policies to do so. This is how it is done in Windows:

Open the Windows Registry by tapping on Windows-R, typing regedit and hitting the enter key.
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Chromium or to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
Add the Dword DiskCacheSize with a right-click on Chromium and the selection of new > Dword (32-bit value) from the context menu.
Give it a value in bytes.
The cache directory can be set when you create the String value DiskCacheDir and change its value to the new location on your drive.

Then it's time for policies... You'll need gpedit.msc installed. If you haven't, google how to enable it for your windows version (I'm on Windows Server 2012 R2 x64).

FROM: http://superuser.com/questions/769626/why-doesnt-chrome-respect-the-diskcachesize-policy (see that page for XP instructions... I'm talking about Vista+)

Log on with an administrator account.

Download the official policy templates. http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-templates

Extract the download archive (e.g. using 7-Zip).

The admx folder contains different subfolders named after a culture name which contain localization strings. There's also a chrome.admx file which is the actual template. Copy it in the PolicyDefinitions folder, which is usually located here:

 C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions

Then copy the "chrome.adml" localization file. Match it to your Windows system locale (it's the only subfolder in C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions, eg. en-UK or nl or...). Match the system local from the extracted policy-templates zip file's subfolders, which are named the same way, so you copy the correct file to the existing policydefinitions subfolder (eg. \en-uk, \nl, ...).

Start gpedit.msc.

Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Google > Google Chrome.

Optional: Double-click the Set disk cache size in bytes setting, enable it, and choose the desired amount. Click OK when you're done. (note: I took 20GB for my RAM Disk, I leave the rest up to Chrome).

To change the cache folder, enable and set the policy "Set disk cache directory" to your ramdisk folder / drive.

Then go to Chrome advanced options and clear the cache from the beginning of times. You can leave cookies and stuff behind, but images and stuff should be removed.

Close chrome (double check with task manager). Start Chrome. Enjoy.

In current setup, the first start of chrome will be slow if SoftPerfect first starts... Cache files are only saved between browser sessions if SoftPerfect keeps running and the ram drive remains mounted. I'll try to solve that by making auto-save of RAM-disk to an image file... See the post edits The current setup WILL SAVE and REMEMBER all your open tabs... Just the content of them needs to be cached again af first start.

Devvie

[jheysen]

If you run a Minecraft server, RAM DIsk can improve server responsiveness up to 200% :p

[devnullius]

If you run a Minecraft server, RAM DIsk can improve server responsiveness up to 200% :p

Why would I do that 

 

[jheysen]

Just because ;p
Well, in general, anything that uses a lot of IO to disk can be speeded up by RAM Disks :p