I have a webserver running on an old P233 MMX.
I fear that running a 7 years old hard drive 24/24h isn't a very good idea, so I would like to install apache and its folders on a ramdisk so my hard drive doesn't die too quickly.. (even though it's just a 3 Gb, i would have a hard time finding another one that fits on that computer..)
I found some tutorials on how to make a ramdisk, but what i would really like to know is: is it really worth it?
I assume a couple of cron jobs would have to be moved on the ramdisk too, so is it realistic to think the hard drive would wake up only once a week for backups and cron jobs?

Thanks!

IMHO no.

How much RAM do you have in this PC? If it is still running I wouldn't bother changing a thing. Its the power on cycles that are harder on the drive then just keeping it powered.

Using a RAM disk will take some memory which might cause the webserver to use more swap which will in effect access the drive more.

There's only 64MB of ram.. you're right, i would have to install some more ram to make sure it doesn't need to swap memory on the hard drive.
128Mb SDRAM is 55$CAN.. which is probably the price of a small new HD.

So powering up&down once a week would be worse that running it continuously?

hmmm... i can't make up my mind