How to use a flash drive as a RAM

If you have an old flash drive laying on the dusty shelf, you could put it to good use by using it as extra RAM. In this way, you make your system perform better with certain applications and be speedier.

Using flash drive as a RAM can be a significant performance boost for older computers. If you have a relatively new computer, things are a bit different. Nowadays RAM is a lot faster than it used to be. If your RAM is clocked higher than your USB flash drive, it will actually slow down your computer not increase its performance.Before using a flash drive as RAM there are few things to note:

• A flash memory can only be written to a current number of times or rewrites. If you actively use your computer, your Flash drive will stop working after few years of use and you will have to get a new one.
• You want to use a flash drive with at least 512MB/s of memory. Otherwise, it won’t do much and it pretty pointless.
• Remember, this isn’t a good way how to upgrade a relatively new PC RAM. Instead, buy an additional RAM.

How to

1. The first thing you have to do is find a dedicated USB port. You want to plug your flash drive into a port that won’t get in your way, and you don’t use it as your flash drive will have to be plugged into your computer all the time. If you do pull it out, your PC might crash.
2. Write down your Flash drive name or rename it to something like “RAM DRIVE” so you always know which drive is used as a RAM.
3. Next thing you should do is format your flash drive or delete everything from it.
4. Once that is done, right-click on This PC, and go to Properties. Once you have done that, go to Advanced and then system output’s settings.
5. Click Advanced, and then click Edit.
6. Click on your flash drive and then select “user-defined size“
7. Now you have to calculate the size of your drive and subtract 5MB. Once done, type this number into the first box and in the second box type it again.
8. Restart your computer and use your extra RAM!

Verdict

Upgrading your RAM with USB flash drive is very easy and is a quick performance boost for your older PC to run certain applications that need that extra memory. Preferably you use a flash drive with no more than 4GB of capacity. Keep in mind that using a flash drive a RAM will kill it very quickly, it’s not built for frequent writes and rewrites.