Guest Ron Martell Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? "R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote: >The transfer rates to "Any" USB peripheral would be significantly >lower than any mass storage devices in the PC. On it's best day >a USB device is going to be hard pressed to reach/exceed a data >transfer rate of 28-30 Megabytes-per-Second. You would likely >see rates of an internal drive in excess of 60-90 Megabytes so >even if it was feasible to put the Pagefile on a USB device the loss >in performance would be very noticeable. > A read from the page file can be for as little as a single memory page (4 kilobytes) and for small amounts such as this the drive mechanism repositioning time (seek time) will be by far the largest single component of the total time required. USB devices have zero seek time. Furthermore, if multiple pages are required from the page file in a single operation there is no guarantee that the required pages will be located in a contiguous area on the disk even if the page file is totally unfragmented. So there is a distinct possibility that the drive heads will have to be repositioned during the operation. Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada -- Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008) On-Line Help Computer Service http://onlinehelp.bc.ca "Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference has never been in bed with a mosquito."
Guest Terry R. Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? On 7/20/2007 11:41 AM On a whim, Ron Martell pounded out on the keyboard > "Terry R." <F1ComNOSPAM@pobox.com> wrote: > >> I've never seen a pagefile being used "if" it was needed. Whether a >> workstation has 256 meg of RAM or 4 gig, the pagefile is always used by >> Windows. For light to medium duty users with a lot of RAM, a >> performance gain can be seen w/o a pagefile, but obviously the reasons >> you stated come into play. > > See my reply to John. Most of the "PF Usage" reported by Task > Manager represents unused portions of memory allocation requests. > > To see how much actual valid memory content has been moved to the page > file you need a special utility such as > http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm > > Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada Regardless, it wasn't "IF" the swap file is being used. If a swap is there, Windows WILL use it. That's what I was saying. -- Terry R. ***Reply Note*** Anti-spam measures are included in my email address. Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.
Guest C.Joseph Drayton Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? carl feredeck wrote: > If USB is slow why then does vista have READYBOOST? > > Something fishy is going on here > > > "ray" <ray@zianet.com> wrote in message > news:pan.2007.07.20.15.56.25.373288@zianet.com... >> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:59:52 +0300, carl feredeck wrote: >> >>> someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be better... >>> >>> and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even >>> better? >> No - because USB is slow. >> > > The problem is not that USB 2.0 is slow it is that Flash RAM is very slow. If you were going to use is with a USB 2.0 hard disk, I would guess that you would get good results. I haven't tried it since I don't use a pagefile other than when I run Photoshop (which is almost never). Ciao . . . C.Joseph "A promise is nothing more than an attempt, to respond to an unreasonable request."
Guest C.Joseph Drayton Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? Ron Martell wrote: > "carl feredeck" <carlferedeck@wizzmail.com> wrote: > >> someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be better... >> >> and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even better? >> > > No. Windows XP does not support the use of a page file on a removable > drive because of the potentially disastrous consequences that might > occur if the removable drive were removed and then Windows needed to > move some of the page file content back into RAM. > > Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada There are a couple of programs that allow you to define a removable drive as a fixed drive. Ciao . . . C.Joseph "A promise is nothing more than an attempt, to respond to an unreasonable request."
Guest ray Posted July 21, 2007 Posted July 21, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:11:56 +0300, carl feredeck wrote: > If USB is slow why then does vista have READYBOOST? > > Something fishy is going on here > > > "ray" <ray@zianet.com> wrote in message > news:pan.2007.07.20.15.56.25.373288@zianet.com... >> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:59:52 +0300, carl feredeck wrote: >> >>> someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be better... >>> >>> and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even >>> better? >> >> No - because USB is slow. >> It is a demonstrable fact that USB is much slower than a decent hard disk. Why MS chose that route, I have no idea.
Guest Plato Posted July 21, 2007 Posted July 21, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? carl feredeck wrote: > > and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even better? No, it would not be better. -- http://www.bootdisk.com/
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted July 21, 2007 Posted July 21, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:46:48 +0100, John <John@zen.co.uk> wrote: > Mike wrote: > > "John" <John@zen.co.uk> wrote in message > > news:46a0d468$0$15860$fa0fcedb@news.zen.co.uk... > >> carl feredeck wrote: > >>> someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be > >>> better... > >>> > >>> and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even > >>> better? > >> > >> If you have enough RAM, you can do away with the pagefile all together. > > > > No, you can't. That is *never* a good idea. > > > > Mike > > > > Mike, I can assure you that I am doing on the machine I am using right > now and have been for a long time with no problems. You may have no problems, but you are wasting much of the RAM you have. Read here: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest carl feredeck Posted July 21, 2007 Posted July 21, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? MVP... the psalm of the Vista user says: Vista uses ram better that's why its always full: there is no good in having empty ram! on that same page you gave "The adage is: 'Free RAM is wasted RAM'." Therefore according to idiotic vista user logic.. you should cram every bit of ram as much as you can. And now comes MVP ken Blake saying something totally different.. "full ram is wasted ram!" Can you illogical Vista users decide what you want already? Is the shell/user referring to clams? Seems so! "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in message news:2kn2a3t5j155ff0ibmq56g9scic2qnbu0b@4ax.com... > On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:46:48 +0100, John <John@zen.co.uk> wrote: > >> Mike wrote: >> > "John" <John@zen.co.uk> wrote in message >> > news:46a0d468$0$15860$fa0fcedb@news.zen.co.uk... >> >> carl feredeck wrote: >> >>> someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be >> >>> better... >> >>> >> >>> and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even >> >>> better? >> >> >> >> If you have enough RAM, you can do away with the pagefile all >> >> together. >> > >> > No, you can't. That is *never* a good idea. >> > >> > Mike >> > >> >> Mike, I can assure you that I am doing on the machine I am using right >> now and have been for a long time with no problems. > > > You may have no problems, but you are wasting much of the RAM you > have. Read here: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm > > -- > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User > Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest RalfG Posted July 21, 2007 Posted July 21, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? My experience with USB2 hardisks is that the data read rate is only 40%-25% that of an internal harddrive. In the range of 20MBps versus 50-60MBps for SATA (HD_Speed utility from Steelbytes). Nero's drive speed test returned even lower values for the USB2 connected drive - 14MBs vs 38-51MBs for the SATA. The quality of the USB2 cable and drive enclosure electronics may have a bearing on the speed. Same USB2 drive enclosure using a generic USB2 cable tested 2MBs slower under Nero. The very same harddrive in its original Maxtor external enclosure (which died #%&^$) tested at nearly double that rate IIRC, using a Firewire interface. For interest sake I plugged in a 1Gig Sandisk Cruzer. The speed Nero reported for it was just over 9MBs. A 512Mb SD memory card came in with a whopping 750KBs. Seems the card reader is only a USB1 device. "C.Joseph Drayton" <csdcs@tlerma.com> wrote in message news:46a14131$0$90262$14726298@news.sunsite.dk... > carl feredeck wrote: >> If USB is slow why then does vista have READYBOOST? >> >> Something fishy is going on here >> >> >> "ray" <ray@zianet.com> wrote in message >> news:pan.2007.07.20.15.56.25.373288@zianet.com... >>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:59:52 +0300, carl feredeck wrote: >>> >>>> someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be >>>> better... >>>> >>>> and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even >>>> better? >>> No - because USB is slow. >>> >> >> > The problem is not that USB 2.0 is slow it is that Flash RAM is very slow. > If you were going to use is with a USB 2.0 hard disk, I would guess that > you would get good results. I haven't tried it since I don't use a > pagefile other than when I run Photoshop (which is almost never). > > Ciao . . . C.Joseph > > "A promise is nothing more than an attempt, > to respond to an unreasonable request."
Guest R. McCarty Posted July 21, 2007 Posted July 21, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? USB 2.0 ( High Speed ) is formerly rated at 480-MegaBITS per second. Divide that by 8 ( Byte Count ) and the theoretical maximum is 60 Meg per second. Most external USB drives use a Translation or Bridge chip to convert data which imposes even more speed reduction. ( This depends on what technology hard drive is actually inside the enclosure). Flash Drive USB devices have varying performance. Just a few days ago I went through my ever expanding collection and tested each one. My newest device, a San Disk Micro Cruzer (2.0 Gigabyte) can only achieve a sustained/average throughput of 14.5 Megabytes per Second. Flash has a very low access time ( ~1.0 mS ) but is not a High Performance device. This is why writing data to a Flash device is significantly longer than reads from it. "RalfG" <itsnotme@bin-wieder-da.de> wrote in message news:%23RaA%23c7yHHA.3768@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl... > My experience with USB2 hardisks is that the data read rate is only > 40%-25% that of an internal harddrive. In the range of 20MBps versus > 50-60MBps for SATA (HD_Speed utility from Steelbytes). Nero's drive speed > test returned even lower values for the USB2 connected drive - 14MBs vs > 38-51MBs for the SATA. > > The quality of the USB2 cable and drive enclosure electronics may have a > bearing on the speed. Same USB2 drive enclosure using a generic USB2 cable > tested 2MBs slower under Nero. The very same harddrive in its original > Maxtor external enclosure (which died #%&^$) tested at nearly double that > rate IIRC, using a Firewire interface. > > For interest sake I plugged in a 1Gig Sandisk Cruzer. The speed Nero > reported for it was just over 9MBs. A 512Mb SD memory card came in with a > whopping 750KBs. Seems the card reader is only a USB1 device. > > > > "C.Joseph Drayton" <csdcs@tlerma.com> wrote in message > news:46a14131$0$90262$14726298@news.sunsite.dk... >> carl feredeck wrote: >>> If USB is slow why then does vista have READYBOOST? >>> >>> Something fishy is going on here >>> >>> >>> "ray" <ray@zianet.com> wrote in message >>> news:pan.2007.07.20.15.56.25.373288@zianet.com... >>>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:59:52 +0300, carl feredeck wrote: >>>> >>>>> someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be >>>>> better... >>>>> >>>>> and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even >>>>> better? >>>> No - because USB is slow. >>>> >>> >>> >> The problem is not that USB 2.0 is slow it is that Flash RAM is very >> slow. If you were going to use is with a USB 2.0 hard disk, I would guess >> that you would get good results. I haven't tried it since I don't use a >> pagefile other than when I run Photoshop (which is almost never). >> >> Ciao . . . C.Joseph >> >> "A promise is nothing more than an attempt, >> to respond to an unreasonable request." > >
Guest Bob I Posted July 23, 2007 Posted July 23, 2007 Re: moving page file to USB 2.0 flashdrive? carl feredeck wrote: > MVP... the psalm of the Vista user says: > > Vista uses ram better that's why its always full: there is no good in having > empty ram! > > on that same page you gave "The adage is: 'Free RAM is wasted RAM'." > > Therefore according to idiotic vista user logic.. you should cram every bit > of ram as much as you can. > And now comes MVP ken Blake saying something totally different.. > > "full ram is wasted ram!" ONLY if the user deleted the pagefile and forced windows to use physical memory to allocate program demands to reserve swapfile space. > > Can you illogical Vista users decide what you want already? > Is the shell/user referring to clams? Seems so! > > > > > "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in message > news:2kn2a3t5j155ff0ibmq56g9scic2qnbu0b@4ax.com... > >>On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:46:48 +0100, John <John@zen.co.uk> wrote: >> >> >>>Mike wrote: >>> >>>>"John" <John@zen.co.uk> wrote in message >>>>news:46a0d468$0$15860$fa0fcedb@news.zen.co.uk... >>>> >>>>>carl feredeck wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>someone asked if moving the pagefile to a second drive would be >>>>>>better... >>>>>> >>>>>>and now I am asking if putting it on a usb flashdrive would be even >>>>>>better? >>>>> >>>>>If you have enough RAM, you can do away with the pagefile all >>>>>together. >>>> >>>>No, you can't. That is *never* a good idea. >>>> >>>>Mike >>>> >>> >>>Mike, I can assure you that I am doing on the machine I am using right >>>now and have been for a long time with no problems. >> >> >>You may have no problems, but you are wasting much of the RAM you >>have. Read here: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm >> >>-- >>Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User >>Please Reply to the Newsgroup > > >
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