OT: Speeding up a slow computer

[AstralWanderer]

dogscoff said:
Does Windows allow you to put your swap drive onto a USB flash drive? They tend to be pretty quick if you have a spare USB2 slot, and you can get a gig or two for pocket change these days. Then you could have Windows on one hard drive, games, programs and data on another and swap on USB, for super-fast performance=-)

Flash memory has slower data transfer rates when writing than hard disks (see this Ars Technica benchmark page) though reading is faster - the biggest advantage it offers is lower seek times.

A bigger downside of flash memory is the limit on the number of times it can be written to (typically in the tens or hundreds of thousands per block). Having data that is written to very frequently (which a swap file will be) may shorten a flash stick's lifespan to mere months.