Using 8GB USB2 thumb drive for page file

I am trying to free up space on my 120GB SSD. I looked into reducing the page-file and/or moving it to my data HDD (500GB & 750GB). I have 16GB of ram, so the page-file will rarely if ever be used. I would like to have it completely off of my SSD to help with longevity of the drive. I like to have my HDDs spin down when not in use, so it might be a pain waiting for the drive to spin up when the PF actually gets used.

I thought, why not use one of the 8 GB USB2 thumb drives I have laying around for the page file? I searched and some said they are slow, but they will probably not be used much anyway, and they would be faster than waiting for the HDD to spin up.

Good idea or not?

EDIT: How would a USB3 Thumb drive fair?

Make your page file like 2gb in size and leave our in your SSD. It won't be used, so writes are nothing to worry about.

I turned the page file off (set it to zero) on my laptop with no issues. It has 16 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD.
I'm not sure ReadyBoost would help if you already have an SSD? Reads would be faster than what you'd get with a spinner drive but would it beat an SSD?

Windows will not normally allow the pagefile to be placed on an external drive. Doing so will likely shorten it's life considerably. Both flash drives and SSDs have a form of wear leveling but that used in the latter is far more effective.

Also understand that a flash drive containing the pagefile cannot be removed under any circumstances while Windows is running. There is no safe removal.

It would be better to use a small pagefile on the SSD. This will not significantly shorten it's life.

Try custom size, for example min 500mb or less, max whatever you like, and forget about it. Chances are it'll stay on the min size 99.99% of the time.

& generally I think (believe) the pagefile 'wear' on any SSD is irrelevant for it's life.

Hi there.

even on an 8GB laptop I'd just leave it on the SSD -- if you are THAT desperate for finding another 2-4 GB of space try moving some of your USER DATA off the SSD. Rule of thumb is page file probably half the size of installed RAM - but depends on what you do on your system and how many applications you run concurrently.

"Classical Data" e.g documents, photos, spreadsheets, audio, even some video can quite easily be moved to spinners or external HDD's. This type of data doesn't change hugely and having it on spinners doesn't slow down the application significantly.

Keep the OS / programs on the SSD.

Wouldn't waste my time with Readyboost -- even a USB3 thumb drive is orders of magnitude slower than an internally fitted SSD (6GB /sec I think on eSata).

Cheers
jimbo

Limited writes to an SSD is the most over inflated concern in the past 5 years.