Speed up my Windows XP Pro. SP3 with Flash USB drives/drives?

I read that Vista and Windows 7 can be sped up faster by using Flash USB
sticks/drives (have 256 MB to 1 GB sizes). Can this be done with an
updated Windows XP Pro. SP3 too?

Thank you in advance.

Yeah, that and thanks. Aww, someone should make one for XP. :)

How much RAM does your system have?

2 GB of RAM. Having some minor speed improvements with those USB Flash
drives would be nice. ;)

Yep, I already moved %temp% to a different drive.

Windows' Task Manager shows this already as "Commite Charge" (bottom
task bar) and "VM Size" column for process list.

No, "Ready Boost" is not part of Windows XP.

However if you want to see a significant performance
boost you can and a second hard drive. Partition the
new (2nd) drive so that the first partition (Logical drive)
is no more than 10% to 20% of the total drive size.

Now use the first partition to relocated your pagefile
and also as a location for temporary files.

Darn. I was hoping someone made a software addon to be something like
this for XP.

I have something like that already. Just curious if USB Flash
drives/sticks could be used for a little more speed up since I have
unused ones. :)

Oh OK. My quad-core PC is fast enough. Just looking for more speed ups
(always room for them!). I was hoping using USB Flash sticks/drives
would even make it faster. I guess not then! Thanks. :)

Yeah, I thought I could speed up XP's boot up like Vista's ReadyBoast
with one of those USB Flash sticks/drives. ;)

"and also as a location for temporary files". That's a variant I have
not seen suggested before!

I found some 3rd party "solutions" to give at least a ReadyBoost
appearance to XP and a flash drive. Free to download and try.

Some people seem to be perturbed with even the real ReadyBoost -
perhaps their expectations are too high.

"ReadyBoost is a great technology when you’re low on RAM."

I think for XP, I would just add more RAM.

I wonder which would be faster and more reliable - a flash drive or on
board RAM?

Anybody multi OS people have experience with this in the real world?

More RAM... but in this case, the OP has enough.

there is a third party
maker that makes
a ready boost version
for xp.

it's about 50 bucks.

-------------

they really act like
the hibernation feature

and you require usb
flash drives that are
twice the size of your
ram to provide the
full benefit.

also, flash drives come
in two flavors:

those that are ready
boost ready

and those that are
not.

-------------

one day microsoft
will hire the smart guy
who develops a rom
level hibernation.

but it will be a long
time til then.

"use the first partition to relocated your pagefile"

Would the paging file get used much when you have 2Gbytes of RAM? I'm assuming that the user isn't
using lots of very big programmes.

However if you want to see a significant performance
boost you can and a second hard drive. Partition the
new (2nd) drive so that the first partition (Logical drive)
is no more than 10% to 20% of the total drive size.

Now use the first partition to relocated your pagefile
and also as a location for temporary files.

The pagefile is always used regardless of the amount of RAM. However,
the more the RAM the less the use made of the pagefile.

You can get more accurate information on pagefile usage using
pagefilemon, a small freeware utility.

Use page file monitor to observe what is the peak usage. Start it to run
immediately after start-up and look at the log. Pagefilemon takes
snapshots. You need to run it at the beginning of the session at then
run it again at intervals throughout the sessions. The log is Pagefile
log.txt. If you right click on the file in Windows Explorer and select
Send to, Desktop (Create Shortcut). The same applies to
XP_PageFileMon.exe.

A small utility to monitor pagefile usage

Note that programs using undo features, particularly those associated
with graphics and photo editing, require large amounts of memory so if
you use this type of programme check these first observing how the page
usage increases when they start and whether the usage decreases when you
close the programme.

You can get clues as to what is generating peak memory demands but this
is not a precise science, more a matter of judgement.

Yes, but some applications and Windows are
constantly creating temp files, some are left behind
and other are automatically deleted.

Since these file create a lot of disk activity locating
them to the fastest part of a second hard drive can
speed things up.

On the PC I'm currently using I have the pagefile
on my third internal hard drive and temp files go
to the 2nd partition on my second drive.

I'm in the process of putting together an article on
this subject and more on my web site in the near
future. I think you will find it interesting and useful.

Windows is not like UNIX and the user has
no control over what gets paged/swapped
out to this file, so it is always in use.

Make matters worse is the fact that the
pagefile can end up being heavily fragmented
and stays that way unless you install a utility
like "PageDefrag" from SysInternals:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx

However with the pagefile located on it's own partition
it never gets fragmented.

Your statement is incorrect. Task Manager does not record actual usage.
It records movements in allocations not usage.

Quote: "Note that these aspects of Windows XP have changed significantly
from earlier Windows NT versions, and practices that have been common
there may no longer be appropriate. Also, the 'PF Usage' (Page File in
Use) measurement in Task Manager | Performance for 'Page File in Use'
include those potential uses by pages that have not been taken up. It
makes a good indicator of the adequacy of the 'Maximum' size setting,
but not for the 'Initial' one, let alone for any need for more RAM."

fragmentation of the pagefile of itself does not matter. The problem is
that a pagefile fragmenting cause other files being written to fragment.
Placing the pagefile in a separate partition or setting a minimum =
maximum pagefile helps reduce fragmentation of the other files. Many
users feel that defragmenting a pagefile is a waste of time as it is
continually being rewritten.

I wasn't really wondering... more like hinting!

The concept of implementing something similar to ReadyBoost in XP is
not new, there are third party apps that attempt to replicate it and
results and opinions vary.

If somebody comes across empirical, measurable and reprodcueable data
using methods to simulate ReadyBoost with XP, that would be most
interesting.

I don't know why you'd say that. Fragmentation of the pf is no
different in impact than any other file and often results in extended
pauses when it becomes too fragmented. What is fortunate is that XP
makes some mediocre attempts to keep it from fragmenting but it's far
from perfect, especially as a drive reaches close to capacity settings.
I've only seen a couple of badly fragmented pfs, but one in particular
had thousands of fragments to it. User must have turned it off & back
on with a nearly full drive was all I could figure. Just defragging the
drive took around 4 hours IIRC and it was only a 360 Gig drive.

There are a few things to consider about attempting to speed up your
computer boot time. Everything that affects your system can be considered at
a couple of levels. First is your computer hard ware.

A) Have you looked into updating your computer bios?
Why? If your computer manufactor updated the microcode into the bios, will
reduce boot up time. And more efficient initialization of hardware will also
reduce your boot time. In addition any USB errors in your current bios may be
fixed. Also reducing startup/boot time. Is your bios set to quick boot? Plug
and play enabled?

1) Each motherboard is different. But have you disable any devices you are
not using? Anything that is initialized requires time. Extra Serial ports?
Usually not used. IEEE 1394, you do not have any devices like a hard drive
connected?

2) How old is your computer? Replaced any of the thermal interface material?
Some processors have thermal throttling which reduces the processor speed.
Have you turned this off? Cleaned up cable management ?

3) Memory speeds. A great resource for memory specifications is cpuz. Is
your memory speed the quickest available for your processor? DDR 3200 is
faster then 2700. Search for more information here. Not to open up a can of
worms bur ddr2 is better then DDR1. Lower memory latencys also help out here.
As mentioned above, a bios update may reconize more memory DIMMs.

B) Hard drive If you are using an "green" drive. This will spin slower and
slow down your computer system. Most drives are slower then say a Western
digital hard drive. And this is outclassed by a S.S.D. another alternative.

C) Since you have not mentioned if you are using a desktop or lap top.
SSD is better for the laptop. A cache IDE/SATA(depending which you are
using for harddrive) with at least 64 Megs of memory will always help out
your boot times.
Is your hard drive set to use DMA? Some motherboard chipsets do not allow
this to work because of designed in cost reductions.

D) Processor. Are you using the latest processor with a larger cache
appropriate to the programs you wish to run? Photo shop will load up a single
core computer. Dual core is better. Any anti-virus programs running? Tri-core
is better. Also consider buying a can of air and blowing out the fans and the
botherboard

E) Video card. Which card are you using? searching for a better card would
help out. And this brings up drivers. Manufactors generally improve both
performance and reliability of drivers.

Soft ware improvement
Defragmentation; I have used various types of programs to restore order to
files on my hard drives through out the years. IOBit.com defrag, is my
current defragger.

Here is some things to look at at the soft ware level

First the Operating System

Is your chipset driver up to date? Intel, Nvidia, and Via usually update
there chipset drivers.

Are you using windows installer 4.5?
Windows scripting host 5.6?
Using dot net 1.1 up to version 3.5?
Looked at using bootvis to optimize start up.
Using direct x and the latest version?

Running Software
Cleaned out your startup folder? Anything like microsoft office slow down
boot up.

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Link to look for programs that are being run on startup. If you are
comfortable using regedit. Always back this up before editing.
http://www.anvir.com/windows-startup-programs-xp.htm

Multiple anti-virus programs? Another slow down. Which also brings up
insecure software. Secunia.com will tell you if you have multiple installs of
programs with different versions. Duplicates can cause problems. Each program
is different. Seaching for help will give you the most appropriate fix.

Delay startup of programs in the startup folder links
http://uk.geocities.com/personel44/maintenance.html

Search for someting called tweak, and clean memory and connectors of your
memory. Reduces contanimates and improves connection speed. Usefull in a lot
of ways. Improving the connection from a lap top battery to computer. Diry
USB connections. Even a pencil eraser will help out in a pinch.

USB drives are SLOW. About 10 times slower than a hard drive.* Then, too,
they fail after a relatively small number of read-write cycles.

It is conceivable that you could add a solid-state drive to your system,
and use that for your page file. I have no idea if such a drive would
work well in that configuration, but I've seen systems with nothing but
a solid-state drive, so it must be OK. The ones I've seen are 80Gb. You
could probably put other stuff on there as well as your page file - you
are not going to cause seek problems.

My system has an 80Gb C: drive, and I'm tempted to change that to a
solid-state drive if my employer fails to update my PC next January, as
was scheduled.

What are you doing where you think your system needs to go faster? If you keep installing and
uninstalling programs, moving data around, it would be good to defrag your system.

If your system has been in place for a few years and you install lots of programs, uninstall
programs, it would be an improvement to reinstall Windows from scratch. That is a lot of work
but it will speed up your system quite a bit.

Every year I reinstall from scratch and only install the programs that I need. I then copy my
data back and everything is cool to go.

I have it down to a science and can re-do a system in a couple of hours.