Almost all of the Ubuntu users have got a Swap partition on their HDDs. Having Swap helps if one runs out of RAM and also, it is used for hibernation.
Smaller USB drive seek times are much faster as compared to the HDD. Windows 7 is using the 'Readyboost' technology these days which is simply like having a Swap file on the USB drive. It can be easily achieved in Ubuntu (Linux in general) by just running a few commands.
The downside is that regular and sequential read/writes to the USB drive decrease the life of the drive itself. It is not as good as having proper RAM but at least it is far better than having Swap on the HDD. �You can do this occasionally when you feel you've started running out of RAM but don't permanently mount your USB drive as Swap as your USB drive would die in a few months for sure.
Plug-in your USB drive and make sure there are no important files on the drive. Delete all the files on the drive or re-format it and go to a Terminal.
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Smaller USB drive seek times are much faster as compared to the HDD. Windows 7 is using the 'Readyboost' technology these days which is simply like having a Swap file on the USB drive. It can be easily achieved in Ubuntu (Linux in general) by just running a few commands.
The downside is that regular and sequential read/writes to the USB drive decrease the life of the drive itself. It is not as good as having proper RAM but at least it is far better than having Swap on the HDD. �You can do this occasionally when you feel you've started running out of RAM but don't permanently mount your USB drive as Swap as your USB drive would die in a few months for sure.
Plug-in your USB drive and make sure there are no important files on the drive. Delete all the files on the drive or re-format it and go to a Terminal.
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