usb speedup

Think Before Using USB Flash Drives To Run Applications or OS: Advisory

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I am writing this post on an advisory note. With the extensive use of USB flash driven in our day to day activities, now we have been aiming to make even our Operating System(OS) portable by installing it in a USB Flash Drive and carrying around in our pocket. Moreover we can run applications such as Mozilla, Anti Viruses etc. from a USB pen drives. Here I am going to explain, why you need to think twice before using your USB Flash Drive to run an Operating System from it.

Why you should think twice before using a USB Flash Drive to run an OS or applications for prolonged period?

All flash memory devices can sustain only a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure. While running a normal OS or an Application from a Flash drive, the system will write and erase a huge number of files and data in the flash drive. With prolonged use, the write/erase cycles of your flash drive may come to an end and may eventually fail.

The write/erase cycle performed while running an Operating System(OS) such as Windows XP or 7 will be very much more than what we can perform manually, by copying and deleting data. So this should be a consideration as it may make your flash drive run out of Write/erase cycles much faster than expected.

a failed usb flash drive

Another usage of USB is Windows ReadyBoost. Windows 7 and Vista can make use of a USB flash drive as a cache memory to improve the performance.  In this case also the cycles are be used a high rate.

Points to be Noted:

  • Flash memory devices have a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure
  • Running an OS or an Application from a Flash drive will write and erase a huge number of files or data in the flash drive per second.
  • Running an Operating System(OS) will perform these cycles much more than what we can perform manually
  • Prolonged use will make your flash drive run out of write/erase cycles and may eventually fail much before expected

How to address this issue?

To address this, as well as space limitations, some developers have produced special versions of operating systems such as Linux in Live USB or portable applications such as Mozilla Firefox designed to run from flash drives. These are typically optimized for size and configured to place temporary or intermediate files in the computer RAM rather than store them temporarily on the flash drive.

Compared to other portable storage devices such as external hard drives, USB flash drives still have a high price per unit of storage. But Hard drives have a higher minimum price.

Alternatives:

  • Run applications or OS which are configured  for Flash Drive use only
  • For Prolonged usage, try buying an external Hard Drive
  • If you are using your USB Drive as a Cache device to improve performance, why not upgrade your RAM size?

Notes:

1. Manual usage of your USB Drive will take years to use up the Write/erase cycles available, so no need to worry.

2. Most Failures in USB Memory Devices are due to wear and tear

Speed Up Your PC Using a USB flash Drive in Windows 7 and Vista With ReadyBoost

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If you have a low memory in your Windows 7 PC, your system may be slow and the performance may not be satisfactory. Microsoft Windows has introduces a new component known as ReadyBoost, to help when your PC’s memory is running low.

ReadyBoost is a component of Microsoft Windows, first introduced with Microsoft’s Windows Vista in 2006 and bundled with Windows 7 in 2009. It works by using flash memory, a USB flash drive, SD card, CompactFlash, external hard drive or any kind of portable flash mass storage system as a drive for disk cache.
ReadyBoost is also used to facilitate SuperFetch, which allows it to perform analysis of boot-time disk usage patterns and creates a cache which is used in subsequent system boots. SuperFetch is a technology that pre-loads commonly used applications into memory to reduce their load times, in a similar fashion to the preload in Linux.

Using ReadyBoost-capable flash memory (NAND memory devices) for caching allows Windows 7 and Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 80-100 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives.

Using ReadyBoost in Windows 7 and Vista:

First plug in your USB flash drive. Open My Computer. You can see the Removable Disk. Right Click on it and Select Properties.

removable_disk_properties

Now in the Properties window, go to ReadyBoost Tab. You can either select Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost or Use this device and set the amount of space you want to use for the process.

ReadyBoost

Now Windows will use the free space available in your flash drive for speeding up your computer.

Note that this process will not delete any data from your flash drive. It will only use the available free space in the removable disk.

Moreover if you want to speed up your boot up and startup, you need to use MSConfig.