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Ask HN: Review my hack: using all available memory (4GB+) on a 32-bit OS

3 points by edgeztv ↗ HN
I feel that this discovery is too important not to have a discussion here. (I submitted my blog post yesterday during peak NH hours - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2412122 - but it fell through the cracks, so I'm reposting).

Summary: You can take advantage of more than 4GB of physical RAM on a 32-bit OS (WinXP in my case) by putting your paging (swap) file on a RAMdisk.

I feel that this is important for the world to know because the move to 64-bit systems has been largely influenced by the memory limit imposed by 32-bits.

6 comments

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edgeztv
The full article: http://nighthacking.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-use-more-tha...

Any comments?

andrewcooke
nice idea. i'm typing this on an x60 with 2GB. this would be even easier on linux, i guess. on the other hand, i added an ssd recently and the effect is similar (since the sawp file is on the ssd).
edgeztv
Thanks. I also thought about installing an SSD. Many people seem to be afraid to use an SSD for memory swapping however, because they believe it will shorten the lifespan of the SSD (especially on Windows XP, due to its overly-aggressive swapping logic).
andrewcooke
I checked that out before I bought. As far as I could tell, it's not really an issue with any half-decent SSD, since they automatically level below the file system (so even though swap is a small part of your disk, it doesn't mean you're putting all that load on a small part of the memory) and also the numbers seem to work out like you'd still get many years of use.

Anyway, for me, I suspect it means I'll keep this laptop for an extra two years. It was starting to feel sluggish if I had, say, firefox and eclipse open. Now it's like new. Would really recommend it... (but it is true I am on Linux...)