SSD for pagefile, ReadyBoost and temp directory?

[coolsilicon]

Hello forum!
I'm considering buying one of those SSDs that go into the ExpressCard slot, which, according to the following site, is connected to the PCIe bus:

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/ ... iagram.htm

I'd like to use it for the three things, mentioned in the subject:

1. Pagefile

2. ReadyBoost

3. Temp directory.

IMHO this would make sense, especially in the case of 1. and 3. A 16 GB SSD for the ExpressCard slot sells for about $185 (~$100 for a 8 GB SSD) over here. This isn't exactly cheap, I know. Anyway, if the pagefile is on the SSD this should make a noticeable difference, since the hd gets rid of a lot of accesses. I have 2 GB of RAM which is sufficient most of the time but Vista, to my best knopwledge, will always use a pagefile as part of its memory management, while OTOH it is not recommended to switch it off.

I'd like to give it a try but I'm not sure whether the speed of such a SSD would be sufficent. It's 20/11 MB/s read/write speed. What do you think? Anyone using such a solution? This is on a T60, so no internal card reader, except I'd get one for the ExpressCrad slot (I have a FireWire card in the PC-Card slot) plus a fast SD card, if that would work for what I'm planning to do.

[jdhurst]

You can easily use such a device for temp files. I do not know about Ready Boost. Then, with respect to the paging file: I would *not* move it to a removable device. I don't know if it can be, but I would not. That file is statically located on the hard drive, Windows looks after it, and doesn't want anyone to interefere with it.

I use and heartily recommend *only* 7200-rpm drives for laptops. With such a drive, I *never* notice the pagefile in operation and feel no penalty at all for keeping it on the main drive.
... JDH

[coolsilicon]

[...] Then, with respect to the paging file: I would *not* move it to a removable device. I don't know if it can be, but I would not. That file is statically located on the hard drive, Windows looks after it, and doesn't want anyone to interefere with it.

I know that it's not a good idea to pull out the drive on which the paging file resides on while it's in use, so - besides the "what if.." temptation - almost no risk here. The question of course is, will Vista allow me to place the paging file on a removeable media; if I get the SSD and find out Vista doesn't, I can still put my mainly used virtual machine on that drive.

I use and heartily recommend *only* 7200-rpm drives for laptops. With such a drive, I *never* notice the pagefile in operation and feel no penalty at all for keeping it on the main drive.
... JDH

That's right, 7200 RPM make a lot of sense, but for me, capacity is more important. I'm waiting for a deal on a 250+ GB hd to replace the current 160 GB drive. As of now, those large drives don't come with the highest RPMs. Anyway, thanks for the warning.

[jgrobertson]

I do use an 8Gbyte card in the ExpressCard slot with Vista 64. Since the major updated by MS in August that has worked ok. The system only assigned 4 Gbyte to the ReadyBoost and I discovered it is best to not mess with that.

I was not successful in using the rest of the card for other purposes and I would not recommend putting the page file there. I have not tried using the rest of the space on the card since the later updates from MS so that may work now.

The only problem I have is that when I get the black screen (docking and suspend problems covered in other posts) and have to force power off, it corrupts that memory and I have to reformat and recreate the ReadyBoost. As far as I can tell, there is no permanent damge from that. The system only uses ReadyBoost when it is available so removing it or having it corrupted just slows it down some.

[coolsilicon]

[...]

I was not successful in using the rest of the card for other purposes and I would not recommend putting the page file there. I have not tried using the rest of the space on the card since the later updates from MS so that may work now.
[...]

Thanks for the info! I just still fail to see what's wrong with putting the pagefile onto a SSD. If something goes wrong, that file should be re-created by the OS the next time it boots. As mentioned by jdhurst, a 7.2k drive should be fine, but a SSD with it's extremely short access times appears to be a perfect fit for the pagefile, IMHO.

[jgrobertson]

The ReadyBoost does corrupt itself in fact today I found it was gone. I think the write time on the SSD may be slower than on the hard drive. If the pagefile become corrupt you may lose data or have corrupted files where I don't think that is the case with the ReadBoost.

[coolsilicon]

[...] I think the write time on the SSD may be slower than on the hard drive. If the pagefile become corrupt you may lose data or have corrupted files where I don't think that is the case with the ReadBoost.

You're right reg. the write speed with the currently available SSDs for the ExpressCard-slot, at least, when we talk about the ones that are close to what could be considered "affordable". They simply are to expensive and their capacity is to small right now to replace conventional HDs. Anyway, a pagefile residing on a SSD shouldn't be at a hihger risk than on a conventional HD, since SSDs are supposed to be more reliable than normal HDs. Here's an interesting site dealing with the topic of SSDs:

http://www.storagesearch.com/

It maybe the OS that gets crazy, doing bad things. As what I've read, vendors aren't to happy with the current - read: pre-SP1 - implementation of ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost. Add to this that SP1 will include a major kernel-update (!) than we talk about what Vista should have been at the point of RTM, maybe it takes SP2 for "the real deal"