2GB USB 2.0 thumb drive vs. hard drive vs. i-ram

[ThePiston]

Obviously i-ram drive would be fastest, but what about the thumb drive vs the hard drive? I have a folder that my main business program accesses from and it's 1.2 GB. It is full of different databases that the program accesses and it takes forever on a normal hard drive. I am considering putting the folder on an i-ram drive, bu tthey cost so much. Do you think a 2GB USB 2.0 thumb drive would be a lot faster than the hard drive? I'd use is just like a separate hard drive and put that folder on it.

 

[jondercik]

No. they dont deal well with alot of writes. If it is only 1.2 GB and it takes forever to access something is wrong, that isnt that big.

 

[CrashX]

USB flash has a limited number of writes, and they aren't that fast.
Maybe try a Raptor?

 

[Bobthelost]

An external USB drive, flash or not, will be much slower than an internal drive. Defrag it.

 

[AdamSnow]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
An external USB drive, flash or not, will be much slower than an internal drive. Defrag it.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

USB 2.0 maxes out at 60 MB/s I believe, so that alone is a bottleneck. You also have to factor in distance traveled and other things, so an internal hard drive will always be faster.

 

[ThePiston]

i'll try an i-ram drive next, i just need better access times - not to mention i'm using a poorly written proprietary program that uses MS Access DBs

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ThePiston
i'll try an i-ram drive next, i just need better access times

Unless you're already maxed on on RAM, add more RAM and create a 1.5-2GB ramdrive, then run the database from there. Cheaper and faster than an i-RAM. You'd have to sync it with nonvolatile storage every now and then, though.

 

[ThePiston]

Huh? You can create a ram drive using normal system ram without the i-ram hardware??

What about using those super-fast CF cards for pro photographers... one that's 2GB? Those must be fast, right?

 

[Cerb]

If you want faster performance with a database, there is a 4-letter acronym calling out to you: SCSI. A decent u160 or u320 controller, and a moderately-sized new or used 10k drive, and you aught to be doing very well, beating a Raptor.

The fast CF cards are fast for flash, but that ain't fast compared to a normal HDD. Last-generation SCSI would be an inexpensive and effective way to go, I think.

Also, yes, you can create a RAMdisk. It will use some of your RAM (so you want to have plenty installed), but look like a plain old drive to your software. The iRAM's main thing is the battery, allowing it to be nonvolatile to some degree.

 

[ThePiston]

yeah, i just looked into SuperVolume which mirrors a drive you specify in ram... it reads and writes to Ram at speeds of the ramdisk, then later it writes to the HD for backup so it's totally safe.