Some Questions

Initiator (iSCSI, FCoE, AoE, iSER and NVMe over Fabrics), iSCSI accelerator and RAM disk

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mehdia
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat May 28, 2005 6:20 pm

Sat May 28, 2005 6:29 pm

Hi,

- I have 1256MB of RAM installed. I can not create a RAMDisk bigger than 701MB while the wizard reports 949MB of RAM is free.

- If I uncheck "Automount this device", how I could mount the RAMDisk after a boot?

- How to unmount a RAMDisk without restarting Windows?

- How I can change the drive letter and name? I tried to change the drive name in Windows Explorer, but it goes back to the default after a boot. For drive letter, it takes the first available letter. Now depending on if I had connected my USB key, it selects a different letter.

- Is there any command line options?

Thanks,
M.A.
Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Sun May 29, 2005 6:36 pm

mehdia wrote:Hi,

- I have 1256MB of RAM installed. I can not create a RAMDisk bigger than 701MB while the wizard reports 949MB of RAM is free.

- If I uncheck "Automount this device", how I could mount the RAMDisk after a boot?

- How to unmount a RAMDisk without restarting Windows?

- How I can change the drive letter and name? I tried to change the drive name in Windows Explorer, but it goes back to the default after a boot. For drive letter, it takes the first available letter. Now depending on if I had connected my USB key, it selects a different letter.

- Is there any command line options?

Thanks,
M.A.
Hi,

1) StarPort driver can allocate about 700-800MB of memory for a RamDisk. The limit is set by Windows kernel mode address space.
You could try using a local StarWind service with RamDisk plugin to allocate a larger RamDisk and mount it with StarPort as 'Remote iSCSI Device'.

2) To autocrete a device you have to set "Automount this device". Otherwise it will not be recreated after rebooting.

3) To unmount a device you should have closed all files on the device's volumes.
If some application freezes and the drive is in use it's possible to try "Force remove" method, but there is a chance that the volume's data is corrupted after that.

4) There is no way to set a different persistent letter for a ram disk because it's recreated every mount.

5) This StarPort version is controlled only with the StarPort GUI aplication.
Is there any sense to have a command line control tool for StarPort?
Best regards,
Valeriy
mehdia
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat May 28, 2005 6:20 pm

Mon May 30, 2005 11:57 pm

Hi Valery,

Here is what I wanted to do: I have a slide show program that access' the hard disk for each and every picture. I wanted to write a batch file to mount a ram disk, copy picture files to the ram disk, run the slide show and at the end, unmount the ram disk to free up the memory.

One problem that I have is the drive letter is not persistant. You see, the drive size is persistant, so the drive letter could have been also.

The other thing is I don't know how to unmount the ram disk when I am done with it.

On the other hand, command line options are very helpfull when calling the program from a batch file. Other similar programs, for example Dekart Private Disk which mounts an image file as a vitual hard disk, have command line options. I would like to suggest something like this:
to mount a 100MB ram disk as drive G: StartPort.exe /RamDisk /100MB /G
to unmount drive G: StrtPort.exe /unmount /G

In this way, you could mount say a 150MB ram disk as drive G from a batch file and say a 250MB ram disk as drive M from another batch file just whenever each one is needed. And unmount each or both whenevr you are done.

Thanks,
M.A.
Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Tue May 31, 2005 4:38 am

mehdia wrote:Hi Valery,

Here is what I wanted to do: I have a slide show program that access' the hard disk for each and every picture. I wanted to write a batch file to mount a ram disk, copy picture files to the ram disk, run the slide show and at the end, unmount the ram disk to free up the memory.

One problem that I have is the drive letter is not persistant. You see, the drive size is persistant, so the drive letter could have been also.

The other thing is I don't know how to unmount the ram disk when I am done with it.

On the other hand, command line options are very helpfull when calling the program from a batch file. Other similar programs, for example Dekart Private Disk which mounts an image file as a vitual hard disk, have command line options. I would like to suggest something like this:
to mount a 100MB ram disk as drive G: StartPort.exe /RamDisk /100MB /G
to unmount drive G: StrtPort.exe /unmount /G

In this way, you could mount say a 150MB ram disk as drive G from a batch file and say a 250MB ram disk as drive M from another batch file just whenever each one is needed. And unmount each or both whenevr you are done.

Thanks,
M.A.
Hi,

Thank you for the suggestions.
We'll try to implement the features in one of the next StarPort releases.
Best regards,
Valeriy
mehdia
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat May 28, 2005 6:20 pm

Tue May 31, 2005 7:50 am

Thanks Valery. Please reply here, if possible, when the next version is available. I will get an auto notification then.

M.A.
Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Tue May 31, 2005 8:58 am

mehdia wrote:Thanks Valery. Please reply here, if possible, when the next version is available. I will get an auto notification then.

M.A.
Ok.
But I'm affraid it will be no so quickly, because RamDisk is not the main feature of StarPort and our development resources are scheduled for some time ahead.
Best regards,
Valeriy
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