can I use flash drive as RAM?

My guess is that the flash drive could be fast enough to be beneficial -- but that the USB port would slow things enough to make the arrangement no better than using the hard drive as virtual memory. (Of course there is also the issue of actually having the device recognized as RAM by programs that need additional RAM.) However, this is really pure guess -- mainly I am responding to see what others say. It is in interesting idea.

Googling "using flash drive as RAM" I found a lot of info, much of which seems to indicate that it could work pretty well. One post mentions that flash drives have a limited number of read/write cycles, so when used as RAM, they could eventually malfunction. I have no idea if that is true or not. It would be interesting to experiment. If you do so, let us know what happens.

Theoretically you could. Realistically however, it is your OS that regulates the use of your RAM and your hard drive as virtual memory, so if your OS doesn't allow you to do this, then no, you can't.

The only ways you can do this then is you create a program that enables you to use your flash drive as a RAM, modify your OS to do this, or write your own OS.

Hey, maybe this might be an interesting project for all you programmers out there.

Isnt this exactly what the computer developed for OLPC does?

If you are using Windows Vista you can. Its called ramboost. When you plug in your usb key you will be given the option to do this. However it will not perform aswell as the ram plugged into your mother board. You are better off buying more ram.

Hello Abid,

Your laptop? Make? Model and mother board type etc. would be helpful. Do you have eSATA or Fire-Wire port maybe?

With Vista OS yes. I don't know about any other OS.

New flash drives are coming out that are fast enough to make it worthwhile, but I don't think you will have much luck with the slower cheaper USB sticks.

GA

Hello servant74, it's nice to meet you.

1-I've observed that guys at cr4 are looking if another way exists anyone experienced with for but answers we already know...

2-I don't want to be seen as an authority about this question.

3-I don't believe that every question has a unique answer.

These are the causes of my word "not really" instead of "no!".

It must be true my approach, if not, you would not commented it, would you?

By the way, i agree fully what you have been told.

Hoping to see your comments in other discussions too,

Thank you.

One point about ramboost under Windows Vista. This does not actually increase your available application memory. What it does is move some or all of the swap file from the amazingly slow HD to a much faster (but still much slower than actual DRAM) flash drive. There are a number of limitations. You will need to use a drive that is fast enough and is large enough to take the swap file space. Not all flash memory is created equal, some devices are much faster than others. You will need USB 2.0 (not a big deal for newer hardware, but some older laptops don't have that.) so that the throughput of the USB interface is not a bottleneck. And of course as was stated earlier flash drives have a finite number of read/write cycles before they fail. Newer devices have a much longer life than the older ones, but it is still finite.

Basically no, you can't as you can see. Back in the good ole days I use to use RamDrive and set the swap file to that; then have others as 'program space' by having the autoexec copy files to them ;) I'd like to be able to do that now-a-days with something like a 2GB RamDrive ;) Have the autoexec copy my game to that RamDrive and run it off there... lol But RamDrive is limited to some 32mb or so... Maybe less. In the good ole days there were a few experimental boards too, plug them in and plug your hd into them and wa-la... You have up to 32mb of ram for your hd buffer!:)

I personally would love a newer RamDrive that could handle upwards of 2 gb... I can dream! :)