Erik Anderson wrote: > > On 2/12/07, Jonathon Jongsma <jonathon.jongsma at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Note that this flash-drive-as-swap is supposedly one of the new > > features of Windows Vista. This is from the FAQ [1]: > > Q: Won't this wear out the drive? > > A: Nope. We're aware of the lifecycle issues with flash drives and are > > smart about how and when we do our writes to the device. Our research > > shows that we will get at least 10+ years out of flash devices that we > > support. > > > > I have no idea how long a device would last with a similar setup under linux... > > > > [1] http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx > > This is really immaterial. They're assuming that the flash device > will be used as flash devices normally are - as portable data transfer > media, not as swap. It really doesn't matter which OS the device is > used with...rather, it's *how* the device is used. > Best-fit. First-fit. Least-recently-used. Largest-block. All the aforementioned with/without dynamic, sporadic and/or only-when-we- run-out-of-space recycling of free space. In the end, it probably doesn't matter how the device is used because it's always possible to construct a "worst case" scenario that hammers the daylights out of a very small section of available swap. And Murphy's Law makes me rather suspect the worst case might happen more than you might realize. I'd avoid using flash drives for swap, until your flash drive comes with at least a 10**8 read/write cycle guarantee. In the end, you'd be better off redirecting your flash drive budget to upgrading your main memory or disk drives. Unless I found a case of 'em in the street or the price drops to $5'idly, -S