A second thanks, Jonas (and others). New but related question:

A few weeks ago I bought a 250 GB external hard drive....Seagate "FreeAgent" model.....USB 2.0 connection. Not yet taken out of the box! I bought it for a back-up to photo and other 'key' files. Can that new hardware item play a part in what you're suggesting

Not sure that I'm savvy enough to hook this up as a swap file, but.... a friend from Maine is about to arrive in 24 hours for a visit. He's an self-employed IT consultant.....

 

I have two suggestions. If you have upgraded your antivirus package recently, that could be slowing things down. I was using Panda, which ran well, until I got a newer version which was like pouring syrup all inside my computer. Try disabling it, (even your current one) then download emails and see if it's any faster.
On your external hard drive, I recently bought a Western Digital Passport ext. HD and backed up data using their "synch" software that came with it. Well you can't look at what you backed up, and if I brought it over to your house to show you my Holiday pictures, forget it. I'd have to dump the whole contents of my backup onto your computer to find a picture. So after emails and calls, I was told not to use their Synch program because it could corrupt files. (jeez, that's a good thing to know). So I will use it like a "dumb" hard drive and just set up folders and copy the folders/files I want to back up with Windows commands. You might consider doing the same if the software that came with yours isn't straightforward.

 

An external drive is not a good choice for a swap file - I'm not sure Windows would even let you do that. Too slow.

As for backups, you can download a free tool from Microsoft called SyncToy. I made have first heard about it on this forum somewhere, but I use it to keep full nightly backups of my main data drives onto a removable USB drive. If the house is burining down, I'd try to grab that USB drive first.

JonasM

 

^^ Speaking of av software, I just bought an updated version of PC-cillin from TrendMicro for my laptop and LOVE IT. Its the fastest running av software I've ever had. I use the same thing on my desktop, but the hd is huge on my desktop, so it takes a longer time to scan. I also had to tweak the desktop version a couple/times before it would allow my laptop to access the wireless connection. Once I figured out the address sequence it works fine. I've used pc-cillin for years and have really liked it WAYYYYYY better than Mcafee and Norton. It is expensive though ($50/yr w/o discounts).

 

Jerry, followup? How's the speed? Have you fixed it?

 

I've recently done the Virtual Mem increase to 4096 min/max as suggested. Too soon to tell definitively, but the email loading speed seems to be improved.

I should have mentioned before....I have a LOAD of email folders which I use extensively to keep track of a lot of stuff....both personal and professional. I should probably be saving more of it to my HD

Thanks to all for the suggestions