I have the potential opportunity to use some very powerful computers with terabytes of RAM to run thin clients and particularly EnCase. I was wondering if anyone had any experience on running EnCase from a RAM drive with the images it is looking at also stored entirely in RAM. Are there any problems with crashing, is the speed difference noticeable, etc?
I would imagine that you will see enormous speed gains.
Reading the Encase 7 hardware configuration testing document on the guidance site the other day, and it is all about I/O speed. CPU speed is relevant, but to a very minor degree when running from SSD or hdd.
I have experimented with all sorts of configurations, but never with this much RAM to play with.
I/O is king in this business, so having an entire image in RAM would give you blistering performance.
Hope it works out for you, post some test results !
What version of EnCase?
IF 7+, locate the cache files on the RAM drive too.