How to increase system system performance

I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

Another trick I tried was moving Windows Search Index to a flash drive, but
it won't let me select even a 16GB flash drive. Even though the Index
doesn't grow beyond 1GB. It's max size seems to be just under 1GB. You can
move to it to a removable drive, though. I rebuilt the Index on an external
500GB USB drive. Again, this cuts down I/O traffic to the internal hard
drive. More performance gain.

Another idea I tried was creating a pagefile on a 16GB USB flash drive. I
found out you can only have 4095MB pagefile or just under 25% of total
capacity. I don't know what the rule of thumb is though, because on the
internal 1TB hard drive I could create up to the max free space, which was
about 700,000GB. Not that I needed that much, but just to test. I'm
actually running with 4GB RAM and no page file, at the moment. Even with
lots of 100MB picture (scanned documents/photos) open, virtual memory wasn't
required. I would like to use most of an 8GB flash drive. Possibly use it
for both temp files and virtual memory.

I don't know if pagefile is the same thing as running ReadyBoost. I don't
think it is, but I will have to look into that. I am not using Readyboost,
since I read it doesn't do much good if you have more than 2GB of RAM.

Now, if you have a 2nd or 3rd internal hard drive, you can create a pagefile
on the 2nd drive and search index on the 3rd or index on 2nd and page file
on 3rd. I highly recommended using a USB drive for temp files. 1-2GB are
pretty cheap. I don't think you need a larger one unless you are working
with full length movies, but I don't for certain.

They do something like this on big database servers, some might refer to as
"mainframes". The index and database are each on their own storage device.
The aggregated bandwidth offers even better performance then RAID and the
best part is you can implement it along side with RAID for insane amount of
storage I/O performance.

Anyways, that's it.

If you need more detailed info on setting this up, leave a little note in
the newsgroup. If I don't get to it, I'm sure someone else will help you
out.

"Tae Song" wrote in message
...
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

Another trick I tried was moving Windows Search Index to a flash drive,
but it won't let me select even a 16GB flash drive. Even though the Index
doesn't grow beyond 1GB. It's max size seems to be just under 1GB. You
can move to it to a removable drive, though. I rebuilt the Index on an
external 500GB USB drive. Again, this cuts down I/O traffic to the
internal hard drive. More performance gain.

Another idea I tried was creating a pagefile on a 16GB USB flash drive. I
found out you can only have 4095MB pagefile or just under 25% of total
capacity. I don't know what the rule of thumb is though, because on the
internal 1TB hard drive I could create up to the max free space, which was
about 700,000GB. Not that I needed that much, but just to test. I'm
actually running with 4GB RAM and no page file, at the moment. Even with
lots of 100MB picture (scanned documents/photos) open, virtual memory
wasn't required. I would like to use most of an 8GB flash drive.
Possibly use it for both temp files and virtual memory.

I don't know if pagefile is the same thing as running ReadyBoost. I don't
think it is, but I will have to look into that. I am not using
Readyboost, since I read it doesn't do much good if you have more than 2GB
of RAM.

Now, if you have a 2nd or 3rd internal hard drive, you can create a
pagefile on the 2nd drive and search index on the 3rd or index on 2nd and
page file on 3rd. I highly recommended using a USB drive for temp files.
1-2GB are pretty cheap. I don't think you need a larger one unless you
are working with full length movies, but I don't for certain.

They do something like this on big database servers, some might refer to
as "mainframes". The index and database are each on their own storage
device. The aggregated bandwidth offers even better performance then RAID
and the best part is you can implement it along side with RAID for insane
amount of storage I/O performance.

Anyways, that's it.

If you need more detailed info on setting this up, leave a little note in
the newsgroup. If I don't get to it, I'm sure someone else will help you
out.

I forgot to mention, putting pagefile on USB flash drive doesn't work. I
think Windows tries to create it during boot, but USB drivers don't get
loaded so it can't access the flash drive to create it. (Probably why you
can't boot in to Windows from USB drives, I even tried enabling BIOS support
for USB drive which works for booting Linux). When I got into Windows and
checked, the pagefile never got created. But if you have another internal
hard drive or maybe even eSATA (in non-ACHI/RAID mode) you can create a
pagefile there.

Done. I think.

Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part due to
the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's generally a poor
idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash drive, as flash drives
have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just
to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue
to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part due
to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's generally a
poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash drive, as flash
drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files are
just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB. Even at a
write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction of a sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and updating
file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

Please read what the fellow said. A USB thumb drive has a "finite" number of
read/write cycles. I have worn out 4 in the last 2-3 years. They just die.
They are NOT meant for continuous reading/writing.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Tae Song" wrote in message
...

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap
say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just
to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue
to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part due
to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's generally a
poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash drive, as flash
drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files
are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB. Even
at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction of a
sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and updating
file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

Tae Song wrote:

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap
say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is
just to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O
queue to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part
due to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's
generally a poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash
drive, as flash drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files
are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB.
Even at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction
of a sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and
updating file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

This notion of yours is getting loopier with each of your replies. Now
you think that enabling compression is going to compensate for the
slower USB flash drives and increase performance because the writes are
going to be smaller, yet you fail to take into consideration the
overhead involved into compressing and decompressing files.

John

"John John - MVP" wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap
say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just
to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue
to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part
due to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's
generally a poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash
drive, as flash drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files
are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB.
Even at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction
of a sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and updating
file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

This notion of yours is getting loopier with each of your replies. Now
you think that enabling compression is going to compensate for the slower
USB flash drives and increase performance because the writes are going to
be smaller, yet you fail to take into consideration the overhead involved
into compressing and decompressing files.

John

Over head is insignificant, even for a single core CPUs. 8.5GB/s transfer
rate from RAM is slow for a CPU. Compression is just something to do while
it waits for the next byte to come by. And I'm running on a Core2 Quad.
Overhead for compression is next to nothing.

Tae Song wrote:

"John John - MVP" wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to
boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a
cheap say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is
just to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an
app like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at
the same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O
queue to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large
part due to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also,
it's generally a poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a
flash drive, as flash drives have a more limited number of write
cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp
files are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under
700KB. Even at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only
a fraction of a sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and
updating file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives
to reduce the size of the writes.

This notion of yours is getting loopier with each of your replies.
Now you think that enabling compression is going to compensate for the
slower USB flash drives and increase performance because the writes
are going to be smaller, yet you fail to take into consideration the
overhead involved into compressing and decompressing files.

John

Over head is insignificant, even for a single core CPUs. 8.5GB/s
transfer rate from RAM is slow for a CPU. Compression is just
something to do while it waits for the next byte to come by. And I'm
running on a Core2 Quad. Overhead for compression is next to nothing.

So that will make your USB drive faster than an internal hard drive? If
that is the case why not just compress the files on the hard drive and
make the internal hard drive that much faster than the USB flash drive?
You are grasping at straws, the plain facts are that USB flash drives
are slower than internal hard disks and whether you want to admit it or
not there is an overhead when file compression is involved and even if
you compress the files the USB drive will still be slower than the
internal drive. The subject of your post is "How to increase system
system performance" yet everything that you propose (including
compression) has the opposite effect!

John

"Tae Song" wrote in message
...


Over head is insignificant, even for a single core CPUs. 8.5GB/s
transfer rate from RAM is slow for a CPU. Compression is just something
to do while it waits for the next byte to come by. And I'm running on a
Core2 Quad. Overhead for compression is next to nothing.

It's been suggested several times befo How about backing up some of your
exotic suggestions with actual and reproducible measurements? Without those
your posts are little else than a soap box oratory: Great for you if you
like to hear yourself speak but not taken seriously by anyone in the
audience.

Tae Song wrote:

"John John - MVP" wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to
boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a
cheap say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is
just to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an
app like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at
the same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O
queue to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large
part due to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also,
it's generally a poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a
flash drive, as flash drives have a more limited number of write
cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp
files are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under
700KB. Even at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only
a fraction of a sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and
updating file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives
to reduce the size of the writes.

This notion of yours is getting loopier with each of your replies.
Now you think that enabling compression is going to compensate for the
slower USB flash drives and increase performance because the writes
are going to be smaller, yet you fail to take into consideration the
overhead involved into compressing and decompressing files.

John

Over head is insignificant, even for a single core CPUs. 8.5GB/s
transfer rate from RAM is slow for a CPU. Compression is just
something to do while it waits for the next byte to come by. And I'm
running on a Core2 Quad. Overhead for compression is next to nothing.

So that will make your USB drive faster than an internal hard drive? If
that is the case why not just compress the files on the hard drive and
make the internal hard drive that much faster than the USB flash drive?
You are grasping at straws, the plain facts are that USB flash drives
are slower than internal hard disks and whether you want to admit it or
not there is an overhead when file compression is involved and even if
you compress the files the USB drive will still be slower than the
internal drive. The subject of your post is "How to increase system
system performance" yet everything that you propose (including
compression) has the opposite effect!

John

"Tae Song" wrote in message
...


Over head is insignificant, even for a single core CPUs. 8.5GB/s
transfer rate from RAM is slow for a CPU. Compression is just something
to do while it waits for the next byte to come by. And I'm running on a
Core2 Quad. Overhead for compression is next to nothing.

It's been suggested several times befo How about backing up some of your
exotic suggestions with actual and reproducible measurements? Without those
your posts are little else than a soap box oratory: Great for you if you
like to hear yourself speak but not taken seriously by anyone in the
audience.

"John John - MVP" wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap
say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just
to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue
to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part
due to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's
generally a poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash
drive, as flash drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files
are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB.
Even at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction
of a sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and updating
file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

This notion of yours is getting loopier with each of your replies. Now
you think that enabling compression is going to compensate for the slower
USB flash drives and increase performance because the writes are going to
be smaller, yet you fail to take into consideration the overhead involved
into compressing and decompressing files.

John

Over head is insignificant, even for a single core CPUs. 8.5GB/s transfer
rate from RAM is slow for a CPU. Compression is just something to do while
it waits for the next byte to come by. And I'm running on a Core2 Quad.
Overhead for compression is next to nothing.

"Tae Song" wrote in message
...

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap
say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just
to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue
to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part due
to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's generally a
poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash drive, as flash
drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files
are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB. Even
at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction of a
sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and updating
file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

Reducing the size of the writes won't affect the time it takes and certainly
will not alter the fact that Flash technology has a limited number of write
cycles. If you're using it as a temp drive, you are ensuring that a flash
drive will fail *sooner* rather than later.

Flash drives aren't appropriate for filesystem utility use. They can only
be relied on for convenient transfer of data that exists elsewhere.

Please read what the fellow said. A USB thumb drive has a "finite" number of
read/write cycles. I have worn out 4 in the last 2-3 years. They just die.
They are NOT meant for continuous reading/writing.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Tae Song" wrote in message
...

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap
say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is just
to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O queue
to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part due
to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's generally a
poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash drive, as flash
drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

snip rest of this post


You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files
are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB. Even
at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction of a
sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and updating
file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

Tae Song wrote:

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Tae Song wrote:
I thought I would share this with you all, a few little tricks to boost
Windows performance.

If you have a spare USB flash drive or you are willing to get a cheap
say
1GB flash drive.

First we plug in the flash drive.

Go to Disk Manager and assign it a drive letter, like Z: (this is
just to
get it out of the way and optional)

Go to Advanced system settings, Evironment variables.

Change the Temp variable under User to Z:\ (I didn't see any point
creating
folders, but that's optional)

Change the Temp variable under System variable to Z:\

This will cut down on I/O traffic to the hard drive. Starting an app
like
Word, would cause the HD to read the program into memory while at the
same
time writing into the drive, temporary files. This causes an I/O
queue to
form and degrade Windows performance. By off loading some of the I/O
traffic to another storage device, the hard drive read/write head
doesn't
have to move around as much either. All performance gains.

I don't think so!! There will be a performance LOSS, in large part
due to the much longer write times to a flash drive. Also, it's
generally a poor idea to have so many continuous writes to a flash
drive, as flash drives have a more limited number of write cycles.

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You don't need an extremely high write speed. A lot of times temp files
are just empty files, many are 0 bytes. Almost all are under 700KB.
Even at a write speed of of say a low of 5MB/s is still only a fraction
of a sec.

This keeps the read/write head from thrashing about creating and
updating file records.

And just to up the ante, I enabled disk compression on the USB drives to
reduce the size of the writes.

This notion of yours is getting loopier with each of your replies. Now
you think that enabling compression is going to compensate for the
slower USB flash drives and increase performance because the writes are
going to be smaller, yet you fail to take into consideration the
overhead involved into compressing and decompressing files.

John