Is it just me or does loading cache into memory seem slower?

[Snappy Phoenix]

I don't get it, the concept of this tweak is to load the cache into memory thus being 1) faster and 2) less SSD thrashing

I don't know if it's just my feeling or if this actually slower than leaving the cache loaded into the SSD?

Pages like http://forums.mydigitallife.info/forum.php seem to be loading in slow motion, as in, one part comes, then wait a while, then another part loads...

please give me your expert opinion Mr. Moon Child

[Moonchild]

I have no opinion without you telling me how you load the cache into memory, and what your particular setup is. Details, please!

[Snappy Phoenix]

I have no opinion without you telling me how you load the cache into memory, and what your particular setup is. Details, please!

A) Open Firefox and in the address bar type about:config and hit enter.
B) Navigate to browser.cache.disk.enable and then double click to so that it is set to false.
C) Right click on the web page and choose New then String. In the Preference name box add browser.cache.memory.capacity and hit OK. Under browser.cache.memory.capacity, enter in the amount of RAM you would like to use in kilobytes. I use 250mb so you would enter 250000 in the box for that.

[Robert2]

The settings are different in Pale Moon:

[Moonchild]

Memory cache and disk cache as built into Pale Moon/Firefox have two different internal functions and work entirely differently in what they cache and how they cache it.
Yes, this will make browsing slower disabling disk cache and trying to assign more capacity to memory cache (which, by the way, is likely never going to be used). No, you cannot coerce the memory cache to work like the disk cache because it simply doesn't.
You should keep both memory and disk cache enabled whenever possible.

[jumba]

The disk cache remains after browser is closed (if not purged manually) and makes the browsing faster that way.

Could I use a ram disk to load my disk cache to memory on system boot and store it to disk only once on system shutdown, and would this be the more ssd friendly option OP was looking for?

[Moonchild]

Could I use a ram disk to load my disk cache to memory on system boot and store it to disk only once on system shutdown, and would this be the more ssd friendly option OP was looking for?

Yes, this would be a good solution to minimize disk use with continuous, intensive usage and allows you to have a fast cache. You can use one of the RAM disks available that offers a "save state" on shutdown and this way permanent RAM disk contents storage.

However!: If you reboot your system regularly, this may cause more wear on the SSD than simply using the disk cache, as it will always write every byte of the cache to disk upon shutdown (and possibly parts of the RAM disk that aren't used, as well, wasted writes) - cached files don't tend to be purged that often (that's the whole point of a disk cache) and reading data from SSD will not cause wear, after all. If your browsing in single windows sessions generally doesn't write the full RAM disk capacity (or however much is saved upon shutdown) to disk while browsing, and I dare say that is the situation for most people, then storing a RAM disk image upon shutdown will cause more wear, not less.

Common sense suggests that, in the end, using regular disk cache on an SSD, especially with Pale Moon's default settings of not storing large elements in the cache, is the most SSD-friendly option. Well, short of not using disk cache at all, of course, but as the OP noticed it slows things down terribly.

[Snappy Phoenix]

Im happier with the speeds with the default Pale Moon settings

thanks a lot for the detailed explanation guys! this forum is the best support site i've seen! better than paid software support even!

[New Tobin Paradigm]

It does seem slightly slower but it isn't like major. I only notice it being slower when I start PM because it has to reload several "app" tabs and whatever else I had open at the time. After that I hardly notice a real world difference.

(I have 24 gigabytes of ram so LOL)