Working with the Amiga's RAM and Rad Disks

Summary

Working with the Amiga's RAM and RAD disks Autumn 2025 RAM it home A RAM disk exactly what it sounds like: using a portion of a computer's RAM as a disk. The benefit is, above all else, speed. The drawback is, naturally, less RAM available for running software. The Amiga has a RAM disk. So what? RAM disks are commonplace: in most Unix-like systems they're just a mount command away, and on other systems there's probably at least one third party tool available for creating one, if the OS isn't capable out of the box. Besides, the average user doesn't have much immediate use for a RAM disk today, considering the prevalence of cheap and fast SSD disks. However, for a 1980s home computer, I dare say the Amiga's RAM disk was and is unique in several ways: It's available out of the box, automounts on every boot and requires zero user effort. It's dynamic, meaning it'll only ever use as much memory as the actual files stored on it require. It automatically grows and shrinks to accommodate for file creation and deletion. This makes it just one of many features that made working with the Amiga just a little bit smoother than other, competing systems. An Amiga 500 motherboard fitted with an A580 memory expansion by 3State (in the lower right of the image), bringing the total system RAM to 2.3 megabytes. Image stolen from BBOAH. Floppies and RAM Being a 1980:s home computer, the Amiga 500 was intended to run from floppy. The machine itself was both cheap and cheerful, but hard drives were prohibitively expensive. In 1990, for example, they cost at least as much as the computer itself - even in a modest 20 or 30 megabyte configuration. Most people settled for a memory expansion, usually bringing the total RAM to one megabyte, and an external floppy drive, adding to the internal one fitted by default. You could also buy for example a one meg RAM expansion - bringing the total system RAM to 1.5 megs - for less than half the price of a hard drive. Later Amigas, such as the A500 Plu...