Good place to go is the "Start Here FAQ" ... there is no '1 size fits all' given the different OSses and security requirements. In fact I've been sitting on a few tips, never been able to finish the confirmatory research on, now on my 'todo' list again, that are really doing the marginal improvements.

To name but a few:

1. Disk & Pagefile Defrags
2. Minimize Ram to Disk Traffic
3. Zillion gb's of RAM
4. No screensaver graphics
5. Leave that PC alone

cheers

It depends on the project. Some may not complain and others may be constrained, especially if you want to do anything else on that computer.

For crunching only, 1 Gb may be sufficient. I found that 512 Mb was NOT enough. Adding 1 Gb gave my crunching-only machine 1.5 Gb...more than enough for now.

2 Gb would be needed next year for the MS Vista OS machines just to get off of the ground. If it only comes with 1 Gb, get another one (general comment for the audience)

U need to qualify as to what u mean with Ram drive. Running BOINC of a "ram-drive" and have it write the checkpoints to, will cause complete loss of result if anything goes wrong. If talking about a flash/usb stick drive, that's been done.

BOINC can be on a harddisk and the project files be somewhere else by adding a file-location command in the shortcut.

Overclocking is entirely at your own risk....u can monitor the results....if they turn into real invalids or error in the result status page, u r fried.

cheers

For many yes, but modern disks are getting faster and faster with bigger and bigger on-board caches so that the CPU can do the crunching while subsystems take care of the disk I/O. Tweaked the heck out of my 5 year old machine/disk and barely notice.

Sort of.

I was mainly testing using a flashdrive to swap the project files in/out of an internet computer and one or more other computers to actually do the crunching.

The UD interface works. The registries on multiple computers interfered with the BOINC scheduling information. It was bad news, since it often complained that I couldn't finish a result by 1900 A.D.

As far as running a flashdrive with a self contained project, I don't think it made much difference. Most of the disk activity was due to the Windows swap file, not the project checkpointing itself.

Naturally from my own result, I would not recommend moving the flashdrive to another computer if it has been specifically set up with project files on one computer with BOINC.

(Your experience may be different. This is a 2 Gb Memorex Traveldrive, so capacity was not a problem. A 128Mb flashdrive probably would not be enough.)

I have a RAMdrive (OS formatted memory disk) on my Win98 computer....which is now too small to run current WCG projects. I just use it as a transfer disk to copy files from one floppy disk to another. New computers don't even have floppy drives because of newer bloatware files, which must be ejected on burned CDs instead.

The disadvantage of an internal RAMdrive is that information would be lost if the power went out or the computer were rebooted....not a great idea for a continuously running project file. I'm still not certain which technology you actually meant. I'd toss the RAMdrive idea and keep the flashdrive idea if you must.