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SSD - is it ok to use in XP laptop

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  SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "ps56k" <pschuman_no5pam_m3@interserv.com> - 2013-12-09 22:17 -0600
    Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Todd <Todd@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-09 20:31 -0800
    Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Paul <nospam@needed.com> - 2013-12-10 00:21 -0500
      Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> - 2013-12-10 09:15 +0000
    Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop WayPoint <somewhere@over-the-rainbow.oz> - 2013-12-10 16:24 +1000
      Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Wildman <best_lay@yahoo.com> - 2013-12-11 21:36 +0000
        Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop WayPoint <somewhere@over-the-rainbow.oz> - 2013-12-12 08:54 +1000
    Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop dg1261 <dgREMOVE-THIS1261@cs.com> - 2013-12-10 08:53 +0000
    Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "ps56k" <pschuman_no5pam_m3@interserv.com> - 2013-12-11 21:18 -0600
      Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Todd <Todd@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-11 20:47 -0800
        Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Ken Blake <kblake@kb.invalid> - 2013-12-12 10:48 -0700
          Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Gene E. Bloch <blochxxxx@someplace.invalid> - 2013-12-13 10:24 -0800
            Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk> - 2013-12-13 23:10 +0000
              Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Todd <Todd@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-13 22:39 -0800
                Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Ron Hardin <rhhardin@mindspring.com> - 2013-12-15 08:24 -0500
                  Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk> - 2013-12-15 23:03 +0000
                    Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Ron Hardin <rhhardin@mindspring.com> - 2013-12-15 21:00 -0500
                      Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "(PeteCresswell)" <x@y.Invalid> - 2013-12-16 09:15 -0500
                        Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "(PeteCresswell)" <x@y.Invalid> - 2013-12-16 09:33 -0500
                          Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Paul <nospam@needed.com> - 2013-12-16 11:26 -0500
                          Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Gene E. Bloch <blochxxxx@someplace.invalid> - 2013-12-16 12:23 -0800
                            Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk> - 2013-12-16 22:30 +0000
                              Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Gene E. Bloch <blochxxxx@someplace.invalid> - 2013-12-16 16:44 -0800
                            Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Ken Blake <kblake@kb.invalid> - 2013-12-16 16:55 -0700
                        Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Charlie Hoffpauir <invalid@invalid.com> - 2013-12-16 10:11 -0600
                        Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop mike <ham789@netzero.net> - 2013-12-16 13:20 -0800
                          Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk> - 2013-12-16 22:33 +0000
                            Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> - 2013-12-29 15:21 -0600
                              Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Charlie Hoffpauir <invalid@invalid.com> - 2013-12-29 15:32 -0600
                                Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> - 2013-12-29 16:19 -0600
                          Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> - 2013-12-29 15:41 -0600
                            Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk> - 2013-12-30 07:51 +0000
                              Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> - 2013-12-30 04:02 -0600
                Re: SSD - is it ok to use in  XP laptop Bob_Villa <pheeh.zero@gmail.com> - 2013-12-15 05:56 -0800

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#2138 — SSD - is it ok to use in XP laptop

A friend has a Dell M1210 laptop running XP - works great.
He wants to expand his disk space,
and bought a SSD to replace the normal spinning disk.
Both are SATA.

However, in browsing around,
he has read several articles about probs with XP and SSD.

What kind of problems might there be ?

What about Win7 and using the same SSD (SATA) device ?

-- 
/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
No Good Deed -
         Goes Unpunished 

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#2140

On 12/09/2013 08:17 PM, ps56k wrote:
> A friend has a Dell M1210 laptop running XP - works great.
> He wants to expand his disk space,
> and bought a SSD to replace the normal spinning disk.
> Both are SATA.
>
> However, in browsing around,
> he has read several articles about probs with XP and SSD.
>
> What kind of problems might there be ?
>
> What about Win7 and using the same SSD (SATA) device ?
>

Hi ps56k,

I put SSD's into XP.  But I do not use el-cheapo drives.

I use Intel's Cherryville and download set up a schedule
on their SSD utility.

And, suddenly, a laptop develops some amazing performance!

-T

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped
in a couple slices of baloney
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#2141

ps56k wrote:
> A friend has a Dell M1210 laptop running XP - works great.
> He wants to expand his disk space,
> and bought a SSD to replace the normal spinning disk.
> Both are SATA.
> 
> However, in browsing around,
> he has read several articles about probs with XP and SSD.
> 
> What kind of problems might there be ?
> 
> What about Win7 and using the same SSD (SATA) device ?
> 

You can use an SSD, no matter what. It won't complain.
You won't hear whining.

The SSD has a preferred alignment. Flash is divided internally,
into structures which are larger than the cluster size of
your file system.

On WinXP, the partition alignment is based on fake
CHS dimensions, causing lots of stuff done by the
WinXP Disk Management, to be divisible by 63 sectors.
This doesn't align very well with the binary power_of_two
sizes involved in flash internal memory blocks.

On Vista/Win7/Win8, you might find things aligned on
one megabyte boundaries. A little more wasteful. But for many
file system operations, only one flash structure gets
updated instead of two. That means you "wear out" the
SSD, slightly slower.

If you use a less than optimal alignment, it just
means a few more write cycles to the SSD drive. And
since many SSD drives fail before they actually
wear out from too many writes, it's unclear that this
really matters.

There's an example here, of a company offering tools
to WinXP users.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20849

    AcronisAlignTool_2_0.exe

Tools like that are "brand aware". Intel pays Acronis a fee.
Acronis makes the tool do a check that an Intel SSD is being
aligned. You check your SSD manufacturer site, to see if
they bought a utility like that for you. I don't know if
any of those tools, are completely free of a "brand check".

On WinXP, you would place a single partition, then have it
aligned to a preferred power_of_two boundary. Doing so will
cause some ancient tools (like Partition Magic) to complain.
But the SSD will receive fewer (fractional) writes that way.

On Windows 7, all of this is taken care of, for you.
Many of the backup/restore tools, have some awareness of
the new alignment, and can even make changes during restoration,
to align things. Some tools will take a "63 sector" backup,
and re-align it to 1MB for you.

*******

It's a shame that OCZTechnology has folded, because they had
some fine tutorials on the care and feeding of SSD drives.
And I suppose when their web site shuts down, we'll lose those.
(They'll be harder to search for.) The thing is, SSDs have
their own mythology, and there are all sorts of little
polishing things you can do (like turn off the "file accessed"
feature of the file system). Note that not all the ideas you
see in articles like this, are a good idea. You have to use
a bit of common sense when reading this.

http://www.thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/1/

They didn't even do the "disable time stamps" one. This is
an excerpt from the OCZ page.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?43460-Making-XP-pro-SSD-friendly

    "Disable timestamp for last access to a file to speed up Windows

     Another frequently seen recommendation is to disable the
     setting that keeps track of the last time a file was accessed.
     Removing the necessity for the system to keep reading and writing
     this information may speed up Windows Explorer.

     The command is:

     fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1

     Note that some backup programs may need this information.
     If you wish to restore the timestamp, the command is:
     fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 0
    "

Now, a question would be, what OSes still do that. AFAIK, it's an NTFS
feature, so all of them should do it. But it's always possible
some OS could have a policy of turning it off for SSDs.

Part of the fun of buying an SSD, is doing all that research :-)

    Paul

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#2144

On 10 Dec 2013, Paul wrote:

>     AcronisAlignTool_2_0.exe
> 
> Tools like that are "brand aware". Intel pays Acronis a fee.
> Acronis makes the tool do a check that an Intel SSD is being
> aligned. You check your SSD manufacturer site, to see if
> they bought a utility like that for you. I don't know if
> any of those tools, are completely free of a "brand check".

I think the Linux "Parted" program can do that without being 
locked to any HDD maker. I guess the GUI version, GParted, 
would probably do it too. What ever the software, it's best to 
do it on a fresh install (or with a new backup), so nothing is 
lost if things go wrong.

You could burn a Linux CD like SystemRescueCD or Knoppix to 
run (G)Parted from.

-- 
__          __
#_ < |\| |< _#

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#2142

On 10-December-2013 2:17 PM, ps56k wrote:
> A friend has a Dell M1210 laptop running XP - works great.

Can't help you, I threw my laptop in the sea.

It was just a dell, rollin in the deep.

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#2145

On Tue, 10 Dec 2013 16:24:12 +1000, WayPoint wrote:

> On 10-December-2013 2:17 PM, ps56k wrote:
>> A friend has a Dell M1210 laptop running XP - works great.
> 
> Can't help you, I threw my laptop in the sea.
> 
> It was just a dell, rollin in the deep.

But you could have had it all!

-- 
<Wildman> GNU/Linux user #557453
You should never be superstitious. It is bad luck!

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#2146

On 12-December-2013 7:36 AM, Wildman wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2013 16:24:12 +1000, WayPoint wrote:
>
>> On 10-December-2013 2:17 PM, ps56k wrote:
>>> A friend has a Dell M1210 laptop running XP - works great.
>>
>> Can't help you, I threw my laptop in the sea.
>>
>> It was just a dell, rollin in the deep.
>
> But you could have had it all!
>

lol  :-)

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#2143

"ps56k" <pschuman_no5pam_m3@interserv.com> wrote in news:l864k2$h5l$1
@dont-email.me:

> in browsing around,
> he has read several articles about probs with XP and SSD.
> 
> What kind of problems might there be ?
> 

The "problems" between XP and SSDs center around two different issues.  

One issue is partition alignment, on which Paul's post gives you a good 
deal of background.  Win7 systems should already come optimally aligned.  
By default, XP systems are typically not optimally aligned for SSDs, but 
there are tools around to realign the partition(s) on a XP system to make 
them so.

The second issue concerns TRIM, a SSD feature that keeps SSD cells 
functioning efficiently.  Without TRIM, SSDs will gradually "slow down" 
over time.  Win7 is already TRIM-aware, so no problem there.  XP is not 
TRIM-aware, but some SSD manufacturers have a utility that can be 
installed in XP to handle that.  If you plan to use XP with a SSD, make 
sure you get a SSD from a manufacturer who provides such a TRIM utility.  
(Samsung calls theirs "Samsung Magician").

You should have no trouble with Win7 on a SSD.  If you take the time to 
realign your partitions and install the manufacturer's TRIM utility, you 
should similarly have no trouble with XP on a SSD, either.

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#2147

"Ben Myers" <ben.myers43@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:f520a1d8-7d35-4847-9c51-51ac41e40ccf@googlegroups.com...
I can't comment on SSDs with XP, which is just as well, because others have.

Samsung makes pretty good SSDs too, and I retrofitted 5 i7 laptops running 
Windows 7 with 512GB Samsung SSDs for a client.  This was back in the summer 
and I have not had any complaints, only accolades.  VERY fast for software 
development, Sharepoint, and humungous Outlook PST files.  I also have a 
smaller 128GB SSD in my older small Win 7 laptop, and it is great on power 
consumption (8 hrs on battery), in addition to being really fast and less 
susceptible to head crashes.  No head crashes means you don't need to be 
concerned about rapid or abrupt movement of the laptop.
-------

-------

My biggest concern, is that when a SSD goes bad,
you will lose ALL of your data at once.
I'm kinda familiar with HDs that seem to act flakey - pending doom -
and then you might have a fighting chance to make copies,
but with a Flash drive SSD - it's all, or nothing.

I've had several flash USB thumb drives go bad - wham - all data gone

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#2150

On 12/11/2013 07:18 PM, ps56k wrote:
> My biggest concern, is that when a SSD goes bad,
> you will lose ALL of your data at once.

He has a point.  If you are going to use an SSD, become
a backup whore.


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped
in a couple slices of baloney
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#2151

On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 20:47:41 -0800, Todd <Todd@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 12/11/2013 07:18 PM, ps56k wrote:

> > My biggest concern, is that when a SSD goes bad,
> > you will lose ALL of your data at once.
> 
> He has a point.  If you are going to use an SSD, become
> a backup whore.


Regardless of whether you use SSDs or HDs, you are always at risk of
losing everything at once, to many of the most common dangers: drive
crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
attacks, even theft of the computer.

That's why you should *always* protect yourself by frequent backup to
external media, regardless of what medium your data is on.

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#2152

On 12/12/2013, Ken Blake posted:
> On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 20:47:41 -0800, Todd <Todd@invalid.invalid> 
> wrote:

>> On 12/11/2013 07:18 PM, ps56k wrote:

>>> My biggest concern, is that when a SSD goes bad,
>>> you will lose ALL of your data at once.
>> 
>> He has a point.  If you are going to use an SSD, become
>> a backup whore.


> Regardless of whether you use SSDs or HDs, you are always at risk of
> losing everything at once, to many of the most common dangers: drive
> crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
> attacks, even theft of the computer.

> That's why you should *always* protect yourself by frequent backup to
> external media, regardless of what medium your data is on.

A hearty +1.

-- 
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

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#2153

In message <bh11m0Fpu0U1@mid.individual.net>, Gene E. Bloch 
<blochxxxx@someplace.invalid> writes:
>On 12/12/2013, Ken Blake posted:
>> On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 20:47:41 -0800, Todd <Todd@invalid.invalid> 
>>wrote:
>
>>> On 12/11/2013 07:18 PM, ps56k wrote:
>
>>>> My biggest concern, is that when a SSD goes bad,
>>>> you will lose ALL of your data at once.
>>>  He has a point.  If you are going to use an SSD, become
>>> a backup whore.
>
>
>> Regardless of whether you use SSDs or HDs, you are always at risk of
>> losing everything at once, to many of the most common dangers: drive
>> crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
>> attacks, even theft of the computer.
>
>> That's why you should *always* protect yourself by frequent backup to
>> external media, regardless of what medium your data is on.
>
>A hearty +1.
>
Not denying the importance of backing up regardless of what you're 
using.

The fact remains, however, that as ps56k says, SSDs fail completely and 
without warning - something that makes those of us who're used to HDs 
somewhat wary of them. This is quite separate from whether one takes 
backups or not - or, for those who live in the real world of 
probabilities, rather than theory, means you might take them _more 
often_ when using SSDs, as Todd suggests.
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

After all is said and done, usually more is said.

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#2154

On 12/13/2013 03:10 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> In message <bh11m0Fpu0U1@mid.individual.net>, Gene E. Bloch
> <blochxxxx@someplace.invalid> writes:
>> On 12/12/2013, Ken Blake posted:
>>> On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 20:47:41 -0800, Todd <Todd@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>> On 12/11/2013 07:18 PM, ps56k wrote:
>>
>>>>> My biggest concern, is that when a SSD goes bad,
>>>>> you will lose ALL of your data at once.
>>>>  He has a point.  If you are going to use an SSD, become
>>>> a backup whore.
>>
>>
>>> Regardless of whether you use SSDs or HDs, you are always at risk of
>>> losing everything at once, to many of the most common dangers: drive
>>> crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
>>> attacks, even theft of the computer.
>>
>>> That's why you should *always* protect yourself by frequent backup to
>>> external media, regardless of what medium your data is on.
>>
>> A hearty +1.
>>
> Not denying the importance of backing up regardless of what you're using.
>
> The fact remains, however, that as ps56k says, SSDs fail completely and
> without warning - something that makes those of us who're used to HDs
> somewhat wary of them. This is quite separate from whether one takes
> backups or not - or, for those who live in the real world of
> probabilities, rather than theory, means you might take them _more
> often_ when using SSDs, as Todd suggests.

1+

And spend a little money on an enterprise grade SSD.  I love
the Cherryvilles from Intel.  Not one single problem.

You buy a cheap one, you are asking for what John states.

-T

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped
in a couple slices of baloney
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#2156

The SSDs on our I910s failed slowly.  The system would crash on this or that spot 
sometimes, but it would come up and you could read data for a few hours or days.
-- 
rhhardin@mindspring.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

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#2158

In message <52ADADAA.12DB@mindspring.com>, Ron Hardin 
<rhhardin@mindspring.com> writes:
>The SSDs on our I910s failed slowly.  The system would crash on this or 
>that spot
>sometimes, but it would come up and you could read data for a few hours 
>or days.

Interesting to know, thanks. (Not that it'll affect me for some years 
yet, but it might be of interest to others, so - what makes/models?)
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

You can think I'm wrong, but that's no reason to stop thinking. - Dr. Gregory
House (TV character), quoted in Radio Times 1-7/3/2008

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#2159

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> 
> In message <52ADADAA.12DB@mindspring.com>, Ron Hardin
> <rhhardin@mindspring.com> writes:
> >The SSDs on our I910s failed slowly.  The system would crash on this or
> >that spot
> >sometimes, but it would come up and you could read data for a few hours
> >or days.
> 
> Interesting to know, thanks. (Not that it'll affect me for some years
> yet, but it might be of interest to others, so - what makes/models?)
> --
> J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
> 
> You can think I'm wrong, but that's no reason to stop thinking. - Dr. Gregory
> House (TV character), quoted in Radio Times 1-7/3/2008

I think it corresponded to the SSD wearing out from writes, as SSDs are reported to do.

The spot may read correctly or it may not, but the SSD as a whole is otherwise sane.
-- 
rhhardin@mindspring.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

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#2160

Per Ron Hardin:
>I think it corresponded to the SSD wearing out from writes, as SSDs are reported to do.
>
>The spot may read correctly or it may not, but the SSD as a whole is otherwise sane.

After reading this thread, it's beginning to dawn on me that maybe the
Windows paging file should be moved from the SSD card to a conventional
hard drive.

Correct so far?   Downsides?

Also, is there anything to be gained by having Windows use several
paging files?   I've got 3 2-TB discs used for media plus a 1-TB disc
used for backup...
-- 
Pete Cresswell

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#2161

Per (PeteCresswell):
>Also, is there anything to be gained by having Windows use several
>paging files?   I've got 3 2-TB discs used for media plus a 1-TB disc
>used for backup...

And how about putting another 8 gigs of memory in the PC and, either
just calling it a day and disabling pagefile.sys altogether or
installing some sort of ramdrive utility and assigning pagefile.sys to
the ramdrive?
-- 
Pete Cresswell

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#2163

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Per (PeteCresswell):
>> Also, is there anything to be gained by having Windows use several
>> paging files?   I've got 3 2-TB discs used for media plus a 1-TB disc
>> used for backup...
> 
> And how about putting another 8 gigs of memory in the PC and, either
> just calling it a day and disabling pagefile.sys altogether or
> installing some sort of ramdrive utility and assigning pagefile.sys to
> the ramdrive?

I've done all sorts of these tests here,
and my general advice is to leave pagefile alone.

It's not that you can't have a ton of fun
playing with it. It's what happens when
you break something, that matters. How do you
"back out", when you bust paging ? Which registry
setting do you modify ? How do you modify the registry
when Windows won't run ?

*******

Try watching the Peak on Task Manager, after
a day of PC usage. What was your Peak usage ?
Did you use all of the available RAM on the PC ?
That's how you estimate whether you need more RAM.

If you want to try a "stressor", try the 64 bit
version of CHKDSK on a modern OS. They designed it
to "waste all available memory". If I need a means
to generate some page-outs, that's a way to do some
testing. If you snag a copy of the 32 bit
version of CHKDSK, and run it on the 64 bit version
of Windows, then it won't use all the RAM
(addressing limit). That's my work-around for
the stupid behavior of CHKDSK.

You can use Task Manager. You can also use "resmon"
on the later Windows, as it can tell you about
page file usage while the system is running.

The Performance plugin has counters it keeps, which
can track stuff you're interested in. For example,
it records Page Writes/sec, and mine just sits there
at zero right now. It also records percentage of
pagefile currently in usage. Mine reads 2.3% or roughly
47MB. Is that 47MB write to the SSD going to hurt it ?

The option to "clear pagefile at shutdown", is probably
going to do more damage than that. As that would
rewrite my entire pagefile.

*******

I've done the following test case.

1) WinXP x32 with 4GB memory license.
2) PC with 8GB of RAM installed (i.e. "4GB wasted")
3) DATARAM RAMDisk free, with ability to use PAE
    memory space, and capable of using the 4GB
    of "inaccessible memory". A driver in Ring0 is not
    subject to the memory license.
4) Put pagefile on RAMDisk.
5) Result ? Buttery smooth transition, when
    Windows programs are using 5GB of memory,
    and you move from program to program to get
    the paging going. It works very nicely.

Downside ? It takes several minutes to shut down
the PC (hibernation mode). It was unbearably
slow, so I took it apart. I reboot more than the
average user. It was driving me nuts.

Also, there are tiny glitches that show this
method is not completely stable. I tested
for a total of maybe three or four days, and
two "events" happened that convinced me
it's not ready for prime time.

*******

If you wanted to do this seriously,
you'd purchase a Gigabyte RAMDrive (no
longer made) and use one of those for
your pagefile. That's a SATA device.

The modern equivalent of that, is the
ACARD stuff.

http://www.acard.com.tw/english/newstabpop.jsp?idno=93

These are the models still in production.

http://www.acard.com.tw/english/fb0101.jsp?type1_title=SATA%20RAM%20Disk%20&ino=28

The ACARD uses CF for backup storage. page 9.
If you wear it out, you could insert another.
Using the CF, also ensures the disk is "formatted"
when your OS goes to page to it at T=0 :-) The
DATARAM software RAMDisk, also restores from backup,
so it can be started in a "formatted" state.

http://dl.acard.com/manual/english/ANS-9010_9010BA(ECJ)Q.pdf

A whole lot of work for nothing, but it's there if you
want it.

*******

Wanna test it ? Be my guest. Just make sure you
know how to back out later, depending on what
you're doing. I suffered a small amount of
hair loss one day, because of stuff like this :-)
You've been warned.

    Paul

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