machine&harddisk on flashdrive

[moklein]

I am running Windows XP on my OSX 10.6.2 host system.
It's located on a 32 gbyte usb flashdrive. Starts up without any problem and seems to run ok,
but it is dead slow in response. It seems to be constantly writing to (and reading from) the
flash drive. It takes minutes to just open a browser. Can't figure out what I am doing wrong.
thanks, Martin

[Perryg]

USB is a approx 50% slower then direct HD transfers. While it will work in a pinch this is not the way to get any real performance.

[moklein]

Thanks for your reply. I wouldn't mind a reduction in performance,
but I don't understand why the system starts writing to the flash
drive everytime I open anything. It did not do that when I used
my internal hard disk to store machines and virtual disk.

[rpmurray]

It did not do that when I used my internal hard disk to store machines and virtual disk.

How do you know that? Depending on how much RAM you have allocated to the VM (and your settings in whatever guest OS you're using), it's eventually going to start using the hard drive (or your USB flash drive) as virtual memory. Or are you making the assumption that the hard drive isn't being used because you can't hear the heads move?

[moklein]

I watch the red and green light flicker on the hard drive activity icon....