iris@Lindy.STANFORD.EDU (IRIS) (03/03/88)
I help support several Macintosh clusters here at Stanford. Some of the clusters use MacServe or AppleShare. Currently, we use RamStart 1.23 to create RAM disks on the Macs that contain all the important system files, leaving the internal drives free for students' data disks. It works fairly well. However, RamStart 1.23 seems to be a bit flakey. For some reason, it doesn't always boot up with the disk size we originally specified. There also doesn't appear to be any patter to its madness -- sometimes it will work fine, and other times the RAM disk will shrink or grow. After it's changed, it seems to want to stay changed at its new size. "Ah," you say, "your students are changing the partition size." Well, we've drilled out the write protect tabs on some of the disks, and physically removed them from others, and the problem persists. Very strange. Does anyone have an explanation for this behaviour? Can anyone recommend a good RAM disk application? It should do the same things that RamStart 1.23 can do: configure a RAM disk with whatever files we want, and then auto-eject. I'd like info on *any* worthwhile utility, not just PD and shareware programs (though a PD package would be best). Thanks... reply to davef@jessica.stanford.edu if possible. David Finkelstein Academic Information Resources Stanford University davef@jessica.stanford.edu
kwallich@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (Ken Wallich) (03/04/88)
>"Ah," you say, "your students are changing the partition size." Well, Yup, I'd say that. >we've drilled out the write protect tabs on some of the disks, and >physically removed them from others, and the problem persists. Very >strange. ---------- Strange? Do any of your students have scotch tape? That's what I use when I loose my write-allow tabs. In your type of environment, I would make sure someone who "owns" their boot up discs has had this problem before shopping around for a new RamDisc program. Just a thought... -------------------- Ken Wallich *My views are mine, and mine alone* Consultant "No mystical energy field controls MY destiny" DCI kwallich@hpsmtc1.HP.COM @Hewlett Packard ...hplabs!hpsmtc1!kwallich "Stories of tortures, used by debauchers, lurid, licentious, and vile make me smile"
talley@bodo.UUCP (James T. Talley) (03/05/88)
In article <475@Lindy.STANFORD.EDU> iris@Lindy.ARPA (AIR-IRIS) writes: >... RamStart 1.23 seems to be a bit flakey. For some reason, it >doesn't always boot up with the disk size we originally specified. > >Does anyone have an explanation for this behaviour? I've noticed this same behavior with RamStart 1.3 and 1.4. It seems to happen to me whenever the amount of memory in use changes. For example, when I turn the RAM cache off or on the ram disk seems to change size. I've been assuming that RamStart tried to preserve a constant amount of free memory for your applications, but I could be wrong. James -- UUCP : ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!bodo!talley Internet: talley-j@osu-20.ohio-state.edu Bitnet : ts0183@ohstmvsa