[geeks] Flash drive questions

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: James Fogg <James at jdfogg.com>
>Date: 2006/08/06 Sun AM 06:59:52 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Flash drive questions

>> Anyone noticed the "feature" that lets you use a USB 2.0
>> thumbdrive as an extension of system RAM, to speed-up your
>> system? I'm going to tinker with that on a test box with less
>> RAM (my current box has 2 Gigs)...
>
>
>Sounds like a bad solution to a non-problem.
>
>Virtual memory swap space on a fixed disk is much faster than
>flash-anything could ever be. And if you unplugged your thumbdrive you'd
>have to world's most unstable system, no matter what OS you run.
>
>The only place I could see this as useful is in a system that had no
>fixed disk for some reason.

At (now old) job we talked about embedding a 2 Gig USB flash drive inside the system case, to act as a driver/application software repository - the upside is that the software can be updated easily, is easily accessed if the system has to be rebuilt (you could probably even store the OS CD image on the drive), and is minimal cost (again, $20 per Gig)... Using it as (I guess) swap space on a thumb drive hanging off the front of the case would be bad, but to add 512 Meg or 1 Gig to an otherwise maxed-out system (like a laptop that can only take 512 Meg of RAM) it could help squeeze some life out of it.

What if you could shove a USB thumb drive inside, say, an SS/20 and have the system suddenly access 1.6 Gig of RAM (and pseudo RAM)instead of the maximum 512 Meg - wouldn't that help prolong the service life of an SS/20?

I'm not saying it is or is not a good idea, I'm asking about it and thinking about it...

Lionel