Storage Fast Pendrives

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Booga, 18 Feb 2010.

  1. Booga

    Booga Cuppa tea anyone?

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    I want to use a pendrive for the LOTRO FlashBoost application.
    Is this a good choice?
    I have 2 eSATA connections at the rear of my I45.

    OCZ 8G eSATA Throttle
     
  2. Booga

    Booga Cuppa tea anyone?

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    Nobody?
     
  3. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    This is probably not what you want to hear, but have you considered just biting the bullet and buying some more RAM? All this stuff is just skirting round the issue; from what I can see this is another ReadyBoost; a kind of halfway house between RAM and an HDD swap file. Either you need more RAM, or you don't. If you do, buy some; it will be faster than this, not choked by the databus, and you can carry it over to your new PC if you're already running DDR3. If you don't need more RAM, you don't need more RAM; don't buy any.

    Sorry if that's not very helpful, but that's how I see it. If you need RAM, buy RAM, not a glorified pen drive. Even the LOTRO FlashBoost site lists the RAM drive as being 'unbelievably' faster.
     
  4. Booga

    Booga Cuppa tea anyone?

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    I was under the impression that flash memory was volatile and therefore would require the information to be loaded to the RAM every time that the PC was switched on.
    I have read that you can use RAMdisk but again this is volatile.
    If I buy extra RAM (I have 4GB atm) is the idea that it uses the unused RAM for the files?

    :confused:
     
  5. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    The idea is that it partitions off some of the RAM for sole use by the program, and yes it's volatile. I'm not sure how much is loaded every time it starts but assuming the programme wasn't written by idiots every time you turn it on, it would copy the relevant files to the RAM-drive immediately and extremely quickly. So it shouldn't be a problem that it's volatile.

    I do find the whole thing a bit weird, though. Would you mind posting a brief outline of your computer's specs? I'm struggling to see how something with 4GB of RAM would profit much from this programming anyway, which seems to be trying to make the game playable on public-library hardware.
     
  6. Booga

    Booga Cuppa tea anyone?

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    Hmm well I didn't realise that it would make that little difference, especially as everyone who has tried it seems to have some benifit to loading times which can be a little tirsome at times.

    MY PC
    TPower I45 - E8400 - 4GB PC2-8500 - Spinpoint F3

    Oh and for some reason to get 4GB more RAM will cost me twice what it did when I bought the first 4GB??? for some reason.
     
  7. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    DDR2's jumped in price as it goes into decline. Your system seems otherwise entirely capable of running the game at speed provided the graphics card is up to the job, so if it's HDD-loading times that are holding you back, then maybe this is a good solution... :confused:

    I've never seen anything like it before designed to accompany a game. The RAM drive I suggested isn't a good idea because I assume you can't mix and match DDR2 and DDR3 on the I45 at the same time, and I won't suggest to anyone to buy more DDR2 these days unless it's secondhand. So maybe this bizarre thing will help. Alternatively, for considerably faster speed and slightly larger space there are small-capacity SSDs knocking about (Vertex 30GBs should be fine if you can get a decent price) if you want something a bit more utilitarian.
     
  8. Booga

    Booga Cuppa tea anyone?

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    I will see if I can get some more RAM second hand.

    Thanks for your help.
     

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