Burning DVDs using RAMDisk, plus multiple devices

[Janssen]

I was wondering if anyone ever successfully used a ramdisk (create a drive letter and space that is in memory rather than on the hard drive) to burn DVDs.

I cannot really try this because my motherboard is limited to 4GB total. But with a motherboard that has 8GB RAM on it, one could use a ramdisk to load the entire content of a DVD into it and burn from memory, to attain greater speeds like 16x, 20x or more without underruns.

It also has the avantage of avoiding constant hard drive access when you are burning many many copies.

Plus, it probably would allow using multiple burners at full speed. Right now, using 3x IDE burners didn't allow for literally 3x fast burning, including CDs, since the load on the hard drives was too great. You have to reduce speed in Nero until the 3x buffer levels remain in 80%+ the whole time (at least they must never reach 0, but 80%+ is for safer burns). Using a ramdisk could allow for many devices to burn DVDs at greater speed as well.

Simple ramdisk programs are usually very limited at the size of disks it can handle (limited to something like 32MB). But i know Dataram RAMDisk can make drives higher than 4GB.

I find it strange that the DVD burning software i know of do not offer the possibility of caching the entire disk into memory, that is to be burned. Or is there such burning software out there?

[jman98]

I actually do this using Qsoft's RAMdisk program. See here:
http://ramdisk.tekcities.com/RAMDisk/ramdriv.htm

My RAMdisk is 8 GB in size. I have 16 GB of RAM in my PC. I can shrink or grow the RAMdisk if I wish but it requires rebooting. If 8 GB is not enough for the DVD then I just write it to a hard drive.

Geez dude, why do you need to burn so many discs at once? I am not some kind of speed freak. My testing has shown that the faster you burn, the more errors the burned disc has. I simply don't EVER burn DVDs or BDs above 4x. I top out at 16x for CD-Rs. I'm not one of those people who freaks out because of how long stuff takes. Most of the time at home I'm not even using my PC so if it takes 10 minutes to burn a CD instead of 5, I really do not care. Saving the 5 minutes is completely useless to me. I work in IT and I'm on computers enough in my life. I don't spend hours upon hours at home on them. I have not found that my burns are any faster, at least not enough for me to tell, but that is not why I use the RAMdisk. It was just convenient for me to have it around instead of ripping DVDs to my hard drive and then using IFOedit to put the 32k buffer between VOBs and IFOs to create an ISO on another place on the hard disk. Now I just create the ISO via IFOedit to the RAMdisk or for smallish DVDs I just rip directly to the RAMdisk. Reduces wear and tear on my hard drive by deleting less. I really do not get why you need to burn so much at once, but you're probably some Anime head who is just collecting stuff more than actually watching it and you're one of those people who is terrified at the thought of your PC running without you watching it every minute it does something so burning quicker frees you up from the electronic shackles you have imposed on yourself.

Anyway, enough criticism of you. Qsoft RAMdisk is a fine product and I like it but I make no guarantees that any ramdisk solution is going to result in the kind of time savings you are seeking.