ENHANCEMENT OF RAM USING USB FLASH DRIVE Introduction Today’s technologica lly i ntensive world demands speed, style and simpli city from any gadget or invention. Thus it is no surprise that lightning fast responses would be expected from modern devices. The perpetual quest for speed ended with con stant enhancement of RAM or Random Access Memory of the computer systems. Need for extra RAM RAM is the main memory of the computer onto which programs and data can be stored and retrieved quickly. Additional RAM provides us with the following benefits: Augmented speed Ability to run larger number of programs simultaneously Heavy programs and large files can be opened faster Decreased frequency of swapping of programs in memory RAM Enhancement Techniques The methods used to enhance the RAM using a USB flash drive differ depending on the operating system. Here, the methods for few of the major operating systems are covered in detail. Windows 8/Windows 7/Windows Vista Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista utilize a very straightforward and elegant feature known as ReadyBoost for extending RAM. ReadyBoost is a feature introduced by Microsoft in its operating systems from Windows Vista. It is a disk cache component of Windows NT and facilitates the use of portable flash memory devices as cache thus bestowing the RAM extensibility feature wi th simplicity. This feature however was unable i n older versions of Windows. The USB drive used here has a capacity of 2 GB. Using ReadyBoost to enhance RAM ReadyBoost requires a minimum of 512MB of built-in RAM and at least 1GB of f ree space on the flash drive. ReadyBoost also does not affect the files present on the drive. Step 1:Attach USB drive and open Windows Explorer. Right click on external drive’s icon and click on properties.
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Use the following command in case you are unaware of the letter the drive is represented by:
sudo fdisk -l
Step 3: Create swap file on USB drive:
sudo mkswap /dev/drive_letter
Step 4: Turn on the swap file created by the previous command
sudo swapon -p 32767 /dev/drive_letter
Step 5: Use the following command to check if the swap is working
cat /proc/swaps
MAC OS/OSX:
USB drives cannot be used to enhance memory in Mac computers. When additional RAM is required
these systems utilize the free space on your hard disk as virtual memory. Hence it is always advisable
to leave at least 10 GB of free space in your hard disk.
Disadvantages of using USB drives for extending RAM
Though the idea of utilising a USB drive as an extended RAM may be very fascinating, this has certain
limitations. The most pertinent of all is the fact this greatly decreases the life-span of the drive. A
flash drive is a type of EEPROM or Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. Such
drives have a fixed number program/erase cycles. Program/erase cycles depict the number of times
a chip can be erased and then reprogrammed before it is rendered unusable. At present, the most
drives have up to 500,000 program/erase cycles. Once these are completed, the drive cannot beused anymore. When used as extended RAM, number of instructions executed lie in the range of
thousands. Hence, an extremely high demand of program/erase cycles is made on the drive. So,
ideally a USB drive must be used as an extended RAM only in the direst of situations.
Conclusions
Out of the various methods discussed, the ReadyBoost feature offered by Microsoft in its latest
operating systems is truly a swift, simple and user-friendly option.
Boosting up RAM using a flash drive is a temporary solution to be ideally used only in critical
situations. Though it may speed up your system, it is not the most desirable of answers. To augment
the performance of your computer, the best solution would be to extend your physical RAM by
installing RAM chips of higher capacity compatible with your computer.