Best use of drive chip

Topic

New Reply

I have a 30MB removable drive the size of a keyfob. It is actually a cased chip on a USB cable. I no longer use it between home and a voluntary job, so I’m wondering what’s the best way to use it. Should I assign Windows swap files there, or internet temps, or my Word macros (which seem to take ages to load), or make it the default home for my spreadsheet and database data files?

Reply | Quote

Replies

I have two removable drives that I alternate for backups. That’s one good use.

Reply | Quote

Thanks, Phil: but I was thinking of ways to take advantage of the speed of the chip, versus rotating discs.

Reply | Quote

I would think the Swap Files and TIF would still be better on the main hard disk. I have to believe that writing to the hard disk is still faster than writing to anything else (except a RAM drive). The backup idea is likely your best bet. Have your My Documents folder and your Outlook.pst file backup up regularly, and you should be better off than most people!

Reply | Quote

Thanks, R2.
I have been regarding my removable chip as being like a RAM-drive, except that it’s a bit further down the bus. i’d like to do a comparison, writing a big bitmap, say, to the hard disk and to the chip: is there a way for the system to tell me how long each write operation took?

Reply | Quote

Thanks, R2.
I have been regarding my removable chip as being like a RAM-drive, except that it’s a bit further down the bus. i’d like to do a comparison, writing a big bitmap, say, to the hard disk and to the chip: is there a way for the system to tell me how long each write operation took?

Reply | Quote

Hmm… I don’t know. There is probably some tool out there that can do it.

How about copying a large file to each and seeing how fast you can access it after starting the copy process?

Reply | Quote

Well – disappointing results: the drive chip is no faster than the hard drive when writing small files – up to 10% of its capacity – and can take nearly three times as long as the hard drive when writing anything bigger than 25% of its capacity. Surely room for driver optimisation there? Or is CMOS inherently slow? But clearly the chip offers me nothing except as an independent backup medium.

Reply | Quote

Well – disappointing results: the drive chip is no faster than the hard drive when writing small files – up to 10% of its capacity – and can take nearly three times as long as the hard drive when writing anything bigger than 25% of its capacity. Surely room for driver optimisation there? Or is CMOS inherently slow? But clearly the chip offers me nothing except as an independent backup medium.

Reply | Quote

Hmm… I don’t know. There is probably some tool out there that can do it.

How about copying a large file to each and seeing how fast you can access it after starting the copy process?

Reply | Quote

I would think the Swap Files and TIF would still be better on the main hard disk. I have to believe that writing to the hard disk is still faster than writing to anything else (except a RAM drive). The backup idea is likely your best bet. Have your My Documents folder and your Outlook.pst file backup up regularly, and you should be better off than most people!

Reply | Quote

Thanks, Phil: but I was thinking of ways to take advantage of the speed of the chip, versus rotating discs.

Reply | Quote

I have two removable drives that I alternate for backups. That’s one good use.

Reply | Quote