Can u use 2Gb Flash Drive for Paging File ?

[phpdog]

Hi ,

Would a 2 Gb FlasH Drive be faster or slower then the default Windows Paging File.

And does using an old hdd as a dedicated paging file speed up your system ?

 

[InlineFive]

What OS are you using? If Windows XP let the pagefile on a hard drive. If Vista use your flash drive for ReadyBoost.

 

[BD2003]

No, and maybe. (depends how old)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Slow down to both.

 

[Looney]

This option is actually built into Vista actually. If you attach an external storage device like HDD or thumbdrive, you have the option to have it act like a paging file.

 

[phpdog]

Im using Win XP MCE 2005 .

The Flash Drive is new .

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: phpdog
Im using Win XP MCE 2005 .

The Flash Drive is new .

The flash drive is a bad idea no matter how new or fast it is.

The only thing that might be useful is the hard drive, but that depends on how new it is, how big it is, and how much memory you have.

 

[Nothinman]

Would a 2 Gb FlasH Drive be faster or slower then the default Windows Paging File.

You have 2G of memory in your machine, assuming you're talking about the one in your sig, so why do you think you're hitting the pagefile enough for it to matter anyway?

 

[unholy414]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Would a 2 Gb FlasH Drive be faster or slower then the default Windows Paging File.

You have 2G of memory in your machine, assuming you're talking about the one in your sig, so why do you think you're hitting the pagefile enough for it to matter anyway?

No matter how much memory you have, a majority of software loads some of itself into the pagefile when ran. Usually low priority items, but if he's a performance whore, then the difference is there.

 

[Nothinman]

No matter how much memory you have, a majority of software loads some of itself into the pagefile when ran. Usually low priority items, but if he's a performance whore, then the difference is there.

Please, point me to the APIs that allow an app to force Windows to store data in the pagefile.

 

[John]

Using a flash drive for a pagefile is bad news IMHO. They are limited on the amount of read/writes before they fail. Not to mention your HDD should have faster transfer rates than the flash drive. If not then maybe it's time to pick up a current gen HDD. 😛

 

[phpdog]

I'm actually in the market for a whole set of new drives .

I bought the 4 Seagate drives together thinking they would last me for at least 2 years .
But in HDDLife 2 of the Seagates and 1 of the Maxtor HDD's are below 50% Health .

There about 9 months old ( 4 x Seagates ) and 1 is at 30% health 🙁

I use my system as a media center and have about 1.2 TB's of media on them .
Now im worried about losing a large chunk of that so im going to buy some new drives .

I've never bought external HDD's before but i seen some reasonably priced 500Gb Drives

500GB My Book Essential Edition WDG1U5000 - hard drive - Hi-Speed USB @ £ 112 . 00
500GB Freecom 3.5" External Hard Drive 16MB Cache USB-2 @ £ 98 . 00
500GB LaCie Red Brick, 1 x USB 2.0/1.1, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache @ £ 112 . 00

Would there be any major difference in the lifetime of an External VS Internal HDD ?

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: John
Using a flash drive for a pagefile is bad news IMHO. They are limited on the amount of read/writes before they fail. Not to mention your HDD should have faster transfer rates than the flash drive. If not then maybe it's time to pick up a current gen HDD. 😛

Thats what I was thinking.....I don't see how ReadyBoost made it as a feature because of this too.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Chadder007

Originally posted by: John
Using a flash drive for a pagefile is bad news IMHO. They are limited on the amount of read/writes before they fail. Not to mention your HDD should have faster transfer rates than the flash drive. If not then maybe it's time to pick up a current gen HDD. 😛

Thats what I was thinking.....I don't see how ReadyBoost made it as a feature because of this too.

Because readyboost isnt really just "using your flash drive as a page file". Its at lot more complicated than that. 😛

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Would a 2 Gb FlasH Drive be faster or slower then the default Windows Paging File.

You have 2G of memory in your machine, assuming you're talking about the one in your sig, so why do you think you're hitting the pagefile enough for it to matter anyway?

++

And to expand on this, if you have 2GB of RAM and you're hitting the PF a lot, you need to add more RAM.

 

[phpdog]

Its mainly Programs like Azureus , once its been running a few hours the system slows down .

And i have a Laptop that when Running Photoshop or Azureus slows RIGHT down .

So even with Vista on my Laptop it wouldnt do anything .

I have the Vista CD for my Laptop ( I had a free Vista Upgrade Sticker , so they sent me the CD ) But not installed yet .

 

[Nothinman]

So switch to something like uTorrent.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: phpdog
Its mainly Programs like Azureus , once its been running a few hours the system slows down .

And i have a Laptop that when Running Photoshop or Azureus slows RIGHT down .

So even with Vista on my Laptop it wouldnt do anything .

I have the Vista CD for my Laptop ( I had a free Vista Upgrade Sticker , so they sent me the CD ) But not installed yet .

Azureus slows down your computer because the intense I/O (writing gigabytes of files) basically takes over your computer, and it starts to configure itself for that purpose. The entire point of superfetch in vista is to prevent that...so your main apps wouldnt be pushed out of memory by random I/O like that.

You can have 8 gigabytes of RAM in XP, but if you download enough, torrents will push all of it out if you let it run for any amount of time.

 

[Nothinman]

You can have 8 gigabytes of RAM in XP, but if you download enough, torrents will push all of it out if you let it run for any amount of time.

Mainly because XP will waste ~4G of that 8G since MS won't let you use it. =)

And on a serious note, it shouldn't be that bad. Yes the I/O should be cached but it shouldn't force programs out to make more room because that's counterproductive for the user and doesn't really help the torrents anyway. But XP does seem to greatly and stupidly favor filesystem cache over everything else.

 

[DarkThinker]

Just drop the flash drive idea already, what a waste of resources for something that doesn't even enhance your system's performance.

 

[imported_Equinox]

Just a thought, but do you have System Restore turned on? You could get back some (or all) if you lower the amount of space it uses. On a media center box, if you just make an image of the system since it is purely for data, what are the chances you'll need to use System Restore?