ramdisk with a file mirror

Question

I wanted to speed up compilation so i was thinking i could have my files be build on a ramdisk but also have it flushed to the filesystem automatically and use the filesystem if there is not enough ram.

I may need something similar for an app i am writing where i would like files to be cached in ram and flushed into the FS. What are my options? Is there something like this that already exist? (perhaps fuse?) The app is a toy app (for now) and i would need to compile c++ code repeatedly. As we know, the longer it takes to compile when there is a specific problem to solve before progressing. the less we can get done.

Answer 1

Compilation is CPU-bound, not disk bound. If you utilize all your CPU cores using the appropriate build flag, you can easily saturate them on typical PCs. Unless you have some sort of supercomputer, I don't think this will speed things up much.

For VS2008 this flag is /MP. It also exists on VS2005.

Answer 2

Ram-disks went the way of the dodo with the file system cache. It can make much better decisions than a static cache, having awareness of RAM usage by other programs and the position of the disk write head. The lazy write-back is for free.