Use your USB flash drive as virtual RAM ( virtual memory optimization )

What is virtual memory?
Virtual Memory is not the part of system hardware but it is only the virtual ram made on hard disk. In virtual memory space from hard disk is utilised for applications that are currently not in use. It is a very essential part of system software i.e. operating system. Amount of space available for virtual memory is known as swap memory that can be used for swapping files.
So virtual memory is the part of operating system which decides how to use hard disk space as ram.
How it works?
Now suppose your system have 512 MB or 1024 MB of ram and you are running four application simultaneously. Also your operating system services are running on that ram only, so now with four applications and system services your ram space is full, so in your next preceding order to system should say that your ram is full now but it never says that. Why is it so ?
This is because all the processes required for your recent activity or for application you are currently running are saved on the ram and all the processes that are not in use are transferred to virtual memory or swap memory so that it can be swapped with currently running data on ram whenever required.
How these functions have to occur are decided by the architecture of virtual memory made, which depends on the operating system that how it is designed to use swap memory. Space available for virtual memory can be decided and manually edited by user but it should be at least 1.5 times of ram size for significant performance.

Virtual Memory makes a image file on hard disk of the size same as virtual memory size and this file is know as PAGE FILE. On windows page file has .sys (system file) extension and this file can be seen by unhiding the protected system files. Here the image shown has XP set for 768 MB of initial virtual memory.


And off course how the virtual memory perform will depend on the read/write speed of hard disk. If your system have enough ram to work with than the swap memory usage is very low so performance remains better but if your system doesn't have enough ram than utilization of swap memory increases which is called THRASHING and this greatly slows down your computer, this is because speed of hard disk is much slower than ram. This isn't mean that virtual memory is of no use it is of great importance for optimal performance but it can't replace your ram.

Optimizing system for best performance

What are conditions for best performance of your virtual ram. Firstly it should be 1.5 times of size of the ram. Suppose that your system have 1GB ram than your virtual memory should be set to 1.5GB of size. Secondly the device you are using for your virtual memory should have faster read/write speed than your hard disk otherwise there will be decrease in performance.
Now for using device as your virtual ram other than your hard disk than connect your device, suppose your device has assigned E alphabet and now follow the below steps:

•  Go to my computer properties.

• Click 'Advanced tab' and go to 'settings' under heading performance

• Now again click 'Advanced tab' than click 'change'.

                               

• Here you have to select 'no paging file' option for all drives and press set. Than select your device letter and select 'custom size' option and define initial and maximum size for virtual memory. Here maximum size should be 1.5 times of ram.

                               

Your external virtual memory device can be USB 2.0, external HDD, SSD, USB 3.0 etc. But as told it should be faster than your primary hard disk. You should use atleast USB 3.0 for significant performance increase,  also if you don't have USB 3.0 port buy the internal card for its support, as it is much faster than USB 2.0. If you don't want to buy the internal USB 3.0 card than use SSD drive as it can be connected to usb port. But the best option will be the express card if you have express port and you can afford it, it is presently the fastest external card.