I have an aging dell Dimension 1100 desktop. I'd like to use flash memory for virtual memory. I have usb2 ports but can I get faster data transfer rates and how much faster by connecting elsewhere? Can I get fast enough to use a usb3 flash memory? One possibility is to put in an adapter and connect via the PCI slot - bus speed 33MHz - would this be significantly faster than using the usb2 port? Would I notice differences from using the HDD for virtual memory? I have a spare HDD slot is there an adapter so that I could connect my flash stick there and how much faster would that be? Any other ideas?
I probably wouldn't use another HDD as virtual memory as this will only be slower than the RAM that is already in your PC. If anything it may slow it down as a lot of your temporary files may be running from your hard drive (slower) compared to running from your faster RAM. I also wouldn't bother with the adapter card idea running through your spare PCI slot as this will only confuse the situation. I would honestly use the flash memory as virtual memory or even use ReadyBoost (assuming that you or on an OS which supports this). Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 supports this. I hope this helps.
