Scenario: I purchased a new, non retina Apple Macbook Pro because I wanted the flexibility to upgrade the RAM, HDD (at a later stage, and not have them soldered in the shop) and still have a builtin CDROM for all my music installers etc… (all the ISOs would total around 400GB). From the store this means I have a 5400rpm 750gb hard drive in my MBP and its slow as hell when running Logic Pro X with a number of WAV / AIFF files.

Solution: When using files in Logic that are really disk intensive and I need extra HDD speed I have created a RAM DISK and loaded the logic project and files from this. In fact its been so quick and stable that I have decided to permanently dedicate 1GB to a RAM Disk and work with my larger logic files here indefinitely.

* Be vary careful when using this method of disk. Its 100% volatile and as soon as you log out,  reboot (or god forbid the machine powers off or crashes) the data will be completely gone. Ideally you would just purchase an SSD, but for those too tight or lazy read on… 🙂

How: 

• Decide how big you want the RAM DISK (I wanted 1gb (1024MB * 2048) = 2097152)
• Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal)
• Run the following command diskutil erasevolume HFS+ ‘LOGIC TEMP’ `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://2097152`
• The RAM Disk should mount on the desktop (provided your finder settings are configured to show ‘External Disks’ (If not from the Finder menu go to >Preferences > General > Show these items on the desktop and TICK ‘ External disks’

At this point I can use this 100% VOLATILE location (everything deleted at logoff, reboot or power off) for file editing, wav file manipulation or editing in Logic Pro especially the files that were really giving me grief.

How to Script It:

I then decided that I loved this new disk so much I wanted it to always be available. So I created a script and added it to my LoginItems so the RAM Drive would be created everytime I log in. *Note there are likely many easier ways to do this, but this one worked for me, please if there is an easier way do let me know / drop me a message!

• Ensure the Mac OS text editior is working in Plain Text mode (Text Edit Menu > Preferences > Plain Text radio button)
• Copy and paste the above command into the file and save the file as RAMDRIVE.SH (or whatever you want to call it)
• Open terminal and set the permissions on the file to execute example
  • chmod 777 (drag and drop your script file into the terminal window to get the full path)
• Browse to the file, Right Click and select open with > Other >
• Enable All Applications then browse to and select Application > Utilities > Terminal
• Add this to your login items Apple Menu > System Preferences > Users and Groups
• Select your user name > Login Items
• Click the + and browse to your RAMDRIVE.SH file
• If it has execute permissions it will list as a ‘Shell Script’ if it doesn’t it will list as a TEXT FILE and open with TextEditor

Difference:

From the App Store I installed the free version of ‘Black Magic Speed Test’. The results of the RAM Disk vs the Local HDD are somewhat obvious

The internal SATA 5400 rpm HDD