I've enjoyed this group on the 'hardware' side of things, and when I
realized that my current question was 'software' oriented I assumed
I'd find a microsoft.public.windowsxp.software group. I couldn't
even
find anything close! Could anyone point me in the right direction?
I
was wondering, in this case, about eBoostr software, a program which
when combined with an appropriate storage device functions like
Vista's "ReadyBoost" for XP users. Thanks! Bob
Try posting in the microsoft.public.windowsxp.general group.
Apparently the product doesn't yet have a big enough following for the
author to provide forums where users can discuss problems or usage of
their product, or they don't want to waste the computer resources and
manpower on managing a forum.
So why not add more system memory to help reduce how much of the
programs get pushed into the pagefile (virtual memory using the slow
hard disk)? Between the cost for eBooster ($29+shipping) and a USB
flash drive ($16), you could buy 2GB of DDR2 800 memory (this is an
example since you didn't mention your mobo so I don't know what type
of memory modules it can use).
eBoostr is pretty expensive (itself along with the required USB drive)
compared to just upping the system memory in your host. Even if you
use a 16GB flash drive or card, it is still far slower than system
memory. Also, flash memory will catastrophically fail after the
remapping can no longer mask out the total number of failures, and
using flash memory for temporary file space is assured to rapidly
exercise flash memory far faster than your typical use as a storage
device. Several million writes sounds like a lot until you realize
that you are exercising that flash memory almost every minute while
the computer is powered up. Luckily, and with the remapping logic
included with the flash memory, the failures that occur during use are
hidden until the logic can no longer handle all the remapping
whereupon the device suddenly fails (i.e., catastrophic failure);
however, until that catastrophic failure, all those failures getting
remapped slowdown the write speed of the device. Also, I'm not sure
how Windows handles suddenly losing some or all of its pagefile space
(and which will fail again after having to do a reboot due to the
"insufficient pagefile space" error).
See:
http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=author:vanguard+flash+oxide+stress
http://www.google.com/search?q=+"flash+memory"+%2B"oxide+stress"
