Can a USB 2 flash drive be used for the page file

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 7:13 pm

I was wondering if you could use a 2 Gig USB 2 flash drive for the virtual memory page file instead of the hard drive. I would hope it would be faster than a hard drive since it's solid state. I've noticed my hard drive going for about 30 seconds after quitting FEAR and some of the maps are loading really slow. That's with 1 Gig of RAM. I see some 2 Gig flash drives for $40 so it could be a cheap solution.
The big question is would windows let you use it for a page file and would it be faster. If so I would probably just use it when I'm using a game I know wouldn't exceed a 2 Gig swap file.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 7:49 pm

Hmmm, interesting idea. I don't know. I just did a Google search and didn't turn up much.

Trouble is that not all flash drives are created alike - some are faster than others.

The other problem is that flash drives have a limited lifespan measured in the number of accesses so I think you would probably wear out the flash drive eventually. How soon, I don't know, but it would definitely be being used beyond normal expectations.

Since your paging file needs to be at least 1.5 times the size of your ram, you'd need a 2gb flash drive if you have a gig of ram.

I do know Vista is designed specifically to do something like this.

If you have a 2Gb stick lying around, give it a try. They're cheap enough now.

DoPeY5007 · Post by **DoPeY5007** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 10:27 pm

Just don't pull it out with the system running!

Jim Z · Post by **Jim Z** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:28 pm

I was wondering if you could use a 2 Gig USB 2 flash drive for the virtual memory page file instead of the hard drive.

I think Windows will let you, but it's a horrible idea.

I would hope it would be faster than a hard drive since it's solid state.

Flash memory is a lot slower than you seem to think. Never mind the overhead and CPU load of USB2.

I've noticed my hard drive going for about 30 seconds after quitting FEAR

That's because FEAR's memory demands caused Windows to page out whatever it could to make room. That's the way it's supposed to work.

That's with 1 Gig of RAM. I see some 2 Gig flash drives for $40 so it could be a cheap solution.

You'll notice far, far more of a difference by going from 1 to 2 GB of RAM. I'll tell you what I tell everyone else- if you're in a situation where page file performance is an issue, you need more RAM. period. Adding RAM will always help you more than dicking around with the page file.

FP:

The other problem is that flash drives have a limited lifespan measured in the number of accesses so I think you would probably wear out the flash drive eventually. How soon, I don't know, but it would definitely be being used beyond normal expectations.

it hinges on the total # of writes. most flash controllers are somewhat intelligent in that they "spread out" the cells they write to so as to extend the life of the chip. However, in the case of a page file situation, Windows writes to it frequently enough where I'd wager the flash drive would be on its way out in a matter of weeks.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 4:04 pm

EVIL: FEAR is a ram hog and a CPU hog. FEAR was VERY slow to unload when I exited the game on my Athlon 3400+ 32-bit system with 1Gb. When I upgraded to a 4400+ Athlon64 with 2Gb it unloads nearly instantly and takes me right back to the desktop. I honestly can't tell you if that's because of the extra memory or the 64bit CPU but I would suspect it's the memory.

Check your peak memory usage in task manager after playing FEAR and you'll notice you've been using nearly all your RAM.

Trust me, if you want to do serious gaming today ESPECIALLY with FEAR, you need 2 Gb now. HL2 & Source engine games (CS:S, DOD:S) also run much better with 2Gb. BF2 is almost unplayable without 2Gb.

Jim: I think speed is less of an issue now with newer designs. You get what you pay for - I notice a big difference in access time between inexpensive flash drives and quality ones. Certainly ram is faster than flash and it would be better to add 1Gb to a system if you want to improve performance.

I would also assume that the use of Flash memory in hybrid drives means that they're improving the life of these things. They DO make long life flash memory for the military and NASA (granted it's expensive) - most NASA space probes made in the last decade run off flash memory for permanent storage.

I doubt these things are ideal for paging files, but next year we'll start seeing flash memory incorporated into hybrid hard drives. They'll be required for Vista laptops. The idea - as I understand it - is that your boot sectors and core OS files will be stored on the flash portion of the drive to allow the OS to boot faster (gee, wouldn't it be nice if Vista was just less code bloated and booted faster without a hardware hack? Another good reason to stick with 2K or XP in my book).

Vista will also allow you to use a flash drive to supplement system memory, but not directly as system memory - more like an auxilliary paging file. I tried this with a 512Mb flash drive with Beta 2 and it did improve performance a bit. It put a sort of swap file on the drive that was the full size of the drive.

What I think would be interesting would be to put your whole boot partition on a flash drive. They are just about to release an 8Gb flash drive and that would be adequate for a WinXP boot partition if you were careful to install all apps to a secondary drive and relocated your documents folder to another drive. I've run XP off an 8Gb partition with no problem (running it from a 10Gb partition right now actually on my main rig, to simplify drive imaging).

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:00 pm

I'm not going to by 2x 1 Gig strips of RAM for this rig. I was worried about going from 2 to 4 sticks of RAM and thought it might be a cheap temporary solution to buy a 2 Gig flash RAM. It looks like that isn't the case.
My friend did a day of extensive testing of 2x 512 MB sticks vs. 4x 512 MB sticks. He found no noticeable difference in the the benchmarks when you set the memory timings manually. There was a huge difference in the load times of maps in Source games and FEAR as well as exiting the games.
I guess I'll upgrade the memory when I start playing more FEAR and less Call of Duty UO.
My Athlon 64 3200+ should have enough CPU power to run the current games.
My biggest bottleneck is probably my X800XL. I'll see what the next generation of video cards are before upgrading again.

Thanks for the info FP and Jim Z.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:00 pm

x800 is none to shabby. I'm running an x800 Pro and quite satisfied with the performance. FEAR is the only game that lags a bit when the action gets heavy.

Oh and sorry I keep calling you Evil because your avatar looks like his... my bad.

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:06 pm

No problem FP. Call of Duty 2 is a real pig on graphics also.
What happened to the good old days, when you could buy a new video card and run all your games on the highest resolution, with all the eye candy turned up full.

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:26 pm

I looked at my page file and it's 300 MB before loading FEAR with 635 MB free RAM and 540 MB after loading a map in FEAR with 295 MB free RAM.
Just for fun I ran a full optimize using RAM Booster with the map loaded and the page file stayed about the same and the amount of free RAM went up to 595 free. The desktop came back immediately afer exiting the game.
When you exit the game the page file goes back to 300 MB but the free RAM goes up over 800 MB.