Subject: usb flash drive as swap in linux

[George Toft]

I have a ton of old memory laying around.  If you are coming to the west 
side meeting, I'll bring it.

George Toft, CISSP, MSIS
My IT Department
www.myITdepartmentAZ.com
480-544-1067

In business, there are always problems.  It's how they are handled
that makes a difference.  Are you happy with your IT Manager?


Technomage wrote:
> as a response to all the posts...
> 
> ok, the deal was that I needed some swap space for a temp thing anyway (linux 
> would not load without it on that box) and the HD didn't have enough room for 
> swap AND the OS filesystem.
> 
> I have since corrected this with the acquisition of a much larger drive.
> 
> 
> as for performance: this was a usb 2.0 device and it appeared to actually have 
> better performance ratings that the HD in the machine at the time.
> 
> now, this is/was a $16.00 mem stick, so, for what it is, it was a "cheap" 
> alternative.
> 
> now all I need is more real memory for that box (compaq presario 1255 with 
> only 32 MB on board). anyone happen to have some old SODimms laying around?
> 
> 
> On Thursday 16 March 2006 00:32, Matthew Martin wrote:
> 
>>>ok,
>>>I have made the required changes to fstab in order to use a 128 meg USB
>>>device.
>>>
>>>only problem I seem to have is that even though the modules are loaded,
>>>it will not initialize as swap space unless I issue a swapon -a from root
>>>after startup.
>>>
>>>some help would be greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>>system is debian kernel 2.6.8-2-386 running on a compaq presario laptop.
>>>
>>>HELP!!!
>>>
>>>TMH
>>
>>Ok, going to reiterate other posts claiming that this is not a good idea.
>>
>>As a reliability engr in memories, I can tell you that flash is generally
>>good for 100k writes, a little more if they play some tricks with rotating
>>addresses around behind the scenes. You will toast your flash stick rather
>>quickly if you actually run in swap.
>>
>>It might be a fun experiment (which brand lasts longer?), but not a
>>recommended solution.
>>
>>
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