NOTE: RAM disks by their very nature are cleared on reboot. Do not use them to store any data that cannot be lost. A suitable use case would be temporary session files for a web server
Installing iSCSI Target Server
Launch Server Manager if it does not automatically load
Click the Start button > Server Manager
Click Manage > Add roles and features Click Next on the Before you begin screen Select Role-based or feature-based installation > Next Leave Select a server from the server pool selected and select the current server > Next Expand File and Storage Services > Expand File and iSCSI Services > Select iSCSI Target Server A popup will appear with additional required roles and features, click the Add Features button Click Next Click Next on the Select features screen Click Install on the confirmation screen Leave the installation progress screen open until the install completes
Creating the RAM Disk
Launch Powershell as administrator Enter the following commands to create the RAM disk, replacing the IP address with the current server's IP address
# allow iSCSI loopback registry setting Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\iSCSI Target' -Name AllowLoopBack -Value 1 # start the iscsi initiator service Start-Service -Name MSiSCSI # set the iscsi initiator service to start automatically Set-Service -Name MSiSCSI -StartupType Automatic # create the ram disk, changing size as needed New-IscsiVirtualDisk -Path "ramdisk:RAMDisk.vhdx" -Size 256MB # initialize iSCSI target New-IscsiServerTarget -TargetName RAMDisk -InitiatorIds @("IPAddress:192.168.0.65") # connect to the ram disk Add-IscsiVirtualDiskTargetMapping -TargetName RAMDisk -DevicePath "ramdisk:RAMDisk.vhdx"
Back in Server Manager, select Tools > iSCSI Initiator Enter the IP address in the Target field > Click Quick Connect... Click Done Back in Powershell, run the following command
# initialize the disk as NTFS Get-Disk | Where partitionstyle -eq 'raw' | Initialize-Disk -PartitionStyle MBR -PassThru | New-Partition -DriveLetter R -UseMaximumSize | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel "RAMDisk" -Confirm:$false
Open File Explorer and the new RAM disk should be listed as a usable NTFS drive
Re-creating the RAM Disk on Boot
After the RAM disk has been setup initially, follow the steps below to have it recreated on system boot.
Open a text editor Paste the following Powershell commands, changing the size as needed
New-IscsiVirtualDisk -Path "ramdisk:RAMDisk.vhdx" -Size 256MB
Save the file as ramdisk.ps1 to a safe location to run from, c:\scripts for example Click on the Start Button > Type task > Launch Task Scheduler Right click the Task Scheduler Library folder in the left pane > Create Basic Task... Set the name to RAM Disk and optionally set a Description > Click Next For the Trigger, select When the computer starts > Click Next For the Action, select Start a program > Click Next In the Program/script field, paste the following:
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
In the Add arguments field, paste the following, editing the path to the .ps1 file if necessary:
"C:\Scripts\ramdisk.ps1"
Click Next Check the Open the Properties dialog for this task when I click Finish box Click Finish In the Properties dialog, click the Change User or Group... button Type system > Press Enter Check the Run with highest privileges box Click OK to create the scheduled task Reboot the server to verify the RAM disk is re-created automatically