This question is for my Raspberry pi A+ (256MB RAM) which is on Raspbian Linux.
I have no qualms about using a flash drive and using up its read and write cycles if need be.
I'm just curious on what minimum read/write speeds I would need in order to see a performance improvement by using a swap partition on an external drive.
I tested a WD 1TB hard drive on a USB 2.0 port and it has around 70 MB/s for both read and write.
A flash drive on a USB 2.0 port I tested has around 15 MB/s.
EDIT: Tested a Sandisk Ultra Class 10 16GB micro SD. Labeled speed: 48 MB/s. On a USB 2.0 card reader I see only a 15MB/s read/write speed.
Are there other factors do I need to take into account in deciding whether to place a swap partition there? If so what are they?