sd card - swap file

[johnmccarron]

Is there a way to set the sd card slot for swap file usage? i have a 4 & 8gb sd card and set the swap file to the drive letter assigned to the sd card, but i dont think windows loads the driver for the slot early enough so the swap file area doesnt get created. the sd card still basically says that it is empty. anyone have any ideas? could a cf card in a pcmcia reader work? i am just looking for a way to speed things up until the memory based hd's come out later this spring.

oh, and yes, the reader will read 8gb sdhd cards when you apply the new driver.

[seneca]

As far as I know, no memory based harddrives are coming out for the X40/X41 at all.

The X4x Thinkpads use 1.8" hdds with an IDE connector, the memory based hdds that will be released this year will use the ZIF connector.

Sorry dude.

[johnmccarron]

hey, thats ok, but what about using some sort of flash memory for the swap file? from what i can gather, the sd card slot cant be used for the swap file, i dont think the driver loads early enough, but what about the pc card slot?

[rek]

Not to pour cold water on your idea, but without swapfile algorithms optimised for this task, using flash memory for your swap file may likely end up reducing performance.

Sure, the access latency of flash is much, much better than hard drives; but its sustained transfer rate is lacking, especially with the on-board card slots (in sustained transfers it's not uncommon for them to be an order of magnitude slower than a hard disk).

The reason why Vista's ReadyBoost (which is the closest thing to what you propose) is effective at all, is because it has caching algorithms that help ensure that it's only used for small paging operations. This means that as the flash is only used for small bursts of data, the benefits of low access time aren't diluted by the slow transfer rate. For large paging operations, it still goes straight to the HDD, where the relatively faster transfer rate means it is the overall faster option. (That's a bit of a simplification as to how ReadyBoost organises itself, but it at least gives you an idea as to the theory behind it.)

So -- I guess the roundabout solution is -- use Vista and enable ReadyBoost with your SD card. It's what I plan to do, once I get my Vista install discs

[johnmccarron]

Thanks for the info. I was toying with the idea of Vista, and have the install disks already from my ms subscription, but i was just worried about vista killing performance otherwise. Even with 1.5gb of ram. I just did a massive reinstall of xp a few months ago, and would want to try just an upgrade. Part of me just thinks it be easier to go for the x60t when it goes vista. That way, i could use the swap file on sd, get a speedy HD or even memory based HD.

[dstrauss]

...oh, and yes, the reader will read 8gb sdhd cards when you apply the new driver.

Can you tell me what "new driver" you are referring to? I have an 8.0gb SDHC flash and can't get the SD reader to recognize it, although it will recognize it in a third party SD reader in the PCCard slot.

[Sash[DSL]]

What if you were to get something like this:
http://www.fotonews.su/default.aspx?news=news126

12mb/s is the sustained read speed; reasonably close to those of notebook hard drives; I measured my brother's 60 gig 2mb cache 4200rpm drive I believe it was and it did ~20mb/s.

My main concern isn't so much the speed; it's the use of cpu cycles. I/O is a major bottleneck for laptops, just about any improvement is better than nothing. Ive tried using built-in card reader slot and a 16 bit pcmcia adapter that worked in PIO4 mode - both used up ~98% of cpu cycles on a 1.2ghz ibm x24


Rek makes a very good point though; What if you were to set up something like a ramdrive on the sd card and re-route small system files on there?

[johnmccarron]

off the top of my head, not sure exactly, but i know it was off of microsoft's site. i'll check tomorrow.

the more i look into this, the more i see an x60t in my future. whatever the next rev is i'll probably jump on.

[loyukfai]

Not to pour cold water on your idea, but without swapfile algorithms optimised for this task, using flash memory for your swap file may likely end up reducing performance.

Sure, the access latency of flash is much, much better than hard drives; but its sustained transfer rate is lacking, especially with the on-board card slots (in sustained transfers it's not uncommon for them to be an order of magnitude slower than a hard disk).
The reason why Vista's ReadyBoost (which is the closest thing to what you propose) is effective at all, is because it has caching algorithms that help ensure that it's only used for small paging operations. This means that as the flash is only used for small bursts of data, the benefits of low access time aren't diluted by the slow transfer rate. For large paging operations, it still goes straight to the HDD, where the relatively faster transfer rate means it is the overall faster option. (That's a bit of a simplification as to how ReadyBoost organises itself, but it at least gives you an idea as to the theory behind it.)

So -- I guess the roundabout solution is -- use Vista and enable ReadyBoost with your SD card. It's what I plan to do, once I get my Vista install discs

So you mean. It's detrimental to the performance using the SD slot for the Windows page file?

[johnmccarron]

yes, well i jumped on the x61t with this functionality built in. couldn't be happier.

[DVormann]

oh, and yes, the reader will read 8gb sdhd cards when you apply the new driver.

Can anyone verify this? If so, which read/write speeds are attainable?

The latest SD-driver I know of is v6.0.4050.1 (March, 14th 2007).

[loyukfai]

yes, well i jumped on the x61t with this functionality built in. couldn't be happier.

You mean the ReadyBoost function built-in to Windows Vista?

[loyukfai]

Another idea... How about using the SD slot for the Hibernation file...?

Anybody tried it before? Or, will it work?