* [Florian Zeitz] > Linux has been able to do this for ages, but it has been considered a > bad idea, because it wears the memory sticks flash. > In theory all it takes is: > 1. # mkswap /dev/sdX (where sdX is your memory stick) > 2. Edit your fstab to say: > /dev/sdX none swap sw,pri=2 0 0 > UUID=stuff none swap sw,pri=1 0 0 > instead of > UUID=stuff none swap sw 0 0 > 3. # swapon -a
Then again, this is nothing at all like ReadyBoost. What ReadyBoost apparently does is to use the flash drive as a secondary disk cache (note: disk cache, not swap) for often read, rarely written data. The point being that while the disk can deliver 50MBps and the flash drive can only deliver maybe 20MBps, you still read a 4k block of data faster from the flash drive because the much lower seek time makes up for the lower sustained data rate. Of course, the most read data will be present in the disk cache in RAM anyway, so ReadyBoost only provides an advantage for not-quite-as-often read data, or maybe during boot. It is also quite clearly more beneficial (except maybe during boot) to add the same amount of RAM instead of ReadyBoost flash drive to your system, but 2GB flash drive is cheaper than 2GB RAM. There's also little reason to think that this needs to wear out the flash drive very quickly. If you store system files (or more correctly, blocks from system files) like the contents of /bin, /lib, /etc, and most of /usr, these are files that hardly ever change (except during dist-upgrade or the occasional security update), but still represent a lot of small reads and would as such benefit from being read from a 1ms seek time flash drive instead of a 10ms seek time hard drive. To answer the original question, I've not heard of anything like ReadyBoost for Linux. Googling for it, I mostly find explanations from people who did not understand ReadyBoost, and present solutions like the one I quoted. Øystein -- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. ..of course, the virus would tell you the same thing.. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
