flash drive ram

[TheGeek]

hi,

i wanted to discuss something that i found very interesting. I am hearing that in the future windows you will be able to use your flash drives as ram. I dont understand how is this posible. Wouldn't it take alot longer and be alot slower?

[Asimov Pupil]

in order to run a program your CPU moves files from your hard disk to your RAM right? this take time, if your program is already saved to a removable RAM then you wouldn't have the loading time when you first open the program.

[Adrian]

it would be slow considering you are using USB 2.0...which has a data transfer rate of about 480Mbits p/Second...which is slow. Current computer systems memory access is about 3,200 MBytes p/sec

[RyanJ]

hi' date='

i wanted to discuss something that i found very interesting. I am hearing that in the future windows you will be able to use your flash drives as ram. I dont understand how is this posible. Wouldn't it take alot longer and be alot slower?[/quote']

 

In exactly the same way as it now does with virtual memory which is (can be) stored on your hard drive

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[5614]

Like said this is virutal memory and not RAM.

 

Virtual memory is slower than RAM and is only used when the RAM is full.

 

Virtual memory is stored on something called a page file which will be on your hard drive, normally located at c:\pagefile.sys (if you can't see it, it's probably still there, it's a hidden+system hidden file. To be able to view it:

My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View > In the box, under Hidden Files and Folders)

 

There's little/no advantage of having the page file on a flash drive, unless you had literally no space on your hard drive.

[mmalluck]

I don't believe windows would be using true flash ram, but more likely some form of battery backed up ram.

 

Flash ram is only good for 1 million rewrites. While this sounds like it would last a long time, this sadly isn't so. Modern OSs write and rewrite to the ram countless times. You'd burn thru a stick of flash ram in less than a year.

[5614]

I think this is an option if you want to, it's not like a "windows need a flash drive for the page file" kinda thing.

 

And I think giving people the option firstly isn't new and secondly isn't useful!