speeding up disk-based laptop by moving /usr to flash?

[Richard Pieri]

I agree with Jerry: add more physical RAM if you can so that you get more filesystem cache.  If you're already lean on cache then adding another drive won't alleviate that problem.  The PCMCIA bus runs at about 1/3 the theoretical maximum speed of the internal disk bay (assuming UDMA Mode 4) so while you'll save on latency you will lose big on throughput.

--Rich P.