Setting up a Swap File on a USB drive

[cormachogan]

Hi. I'm trying to setup a swap file on a usb drive - I've been told this should help performance. I've added a 1GB drive and formatted it on the Dreambox & rebooted.

When I try to add the swap file in the blue panel, the only option I have is the internal hard drive and not the usb drive. Any ideas? I'm using Dream Elite Phoenix 1.33.

Thanks

 

[Oily]

Have you mounted the USB?,blue panel then device manager.It should show what you have connected and whether it's mounted or not

 

[Huevos]

I've added a 1GB drive

Are you talking about a flash drive? USB 2.0 is already slow compared to eSATA (480 Mbps compared to 3 Gbps) and a flash drive is going to be even slower. Also flash is a storage device only, if you use it as a swap file device it won't last long.

 

[cormachogan]

Thanks Oily - I missed that. The drive needed a mountpoint. That's done now and I have the option to use it for the swap file.

I've setup a 64MB swap file but it remains inactive. Any ideas? I've pressed the red button to activate it and it's also set to Autostart. I've reboted the box a few times...

 

[cormachogan]

Huevos - it is a flash drive alright. I have a sata drive fitted and the problem I am having is when watching and wouldn't recording HD at the same time is giving bad performance. After some searching, I thought a swap file would help (RAM at 98%). Surely it wouldn't help if I put it on the hard drive as well?

 

[Huevos]

Don't take too much notice of me because I'm not a Dreambox owner... but I used to write software so I've got an idea things work. Swap file is what you use if you haven't got enough RAM to do an operation. It is miles slower than RAM though, so you can only use it when it doesn't matter if your application runs slow. That's not the case here though because your application is running in real time so anything that causes a slow down is going to make the situation worse. To sort it out you need to find out where the bottle neck is. It could be processor, RAM or hard drive. Once you work out which it is you need to upgrade that hardware (faster disc for example) or lower the demand on those resources (make sure there are no unnecessary apps using those resources at the same time).

 

[td03-5]

Hi @cormachogan,

Regardless of whether it will help your situation or not, I fully agree with @Huevos on NOT using a USB memory stick for a swap-file. These devices use 'punch-thru' technology and are not designed for continuous Write operations. In Klona's original Dreambox Guide, he strongly advised against setting up a swap-file on a USB memory stick. He said the stick would be dead within a month!

Sorry this does not help with your problem but perhaps it helps to advise against an unwise move.


Best wishes, John.