'Scuse me UNCTUOUS but why on earth would you want to use a slow device like a memory stick as the XP swapfile? It's an order of magnitude slower than a normal hard drive and 2 orders slower than RAM !
EEPROM's do have a limited cycle life, but in normal practice (just using it to carry files around) you probably would'nt see it before the device itself is obsolete. If you use it as a (very slow) swapfile with constant reads/writes of course you'll see it's end-of-life sooner.
XP, left to it's own devices, handles it's swapfile quite intelligently for RAM <512MB. If you have more than that it's best to limit it to 512MB, remembering that the more memory you have the less your swapfile will be used.
From Fastest to Slowest, these are the configuration you can try:
No swap file at all. Need at least 512MB RAM. Some software may fail.
A static swap file on a separate hard drive (and preferably, controller)
A dynamic swap file on a separate hard drive (and preferably, controller)
A static swap file on a separate partition, but on the same physical hard drive as Windows.
A dynamic swap file on a separate partition, but on the same physical hard drive as Windows.
The Default: A dynamic swap file on the same partition and physical hard drive (usually C:) as Windows.
Slowest of all - memory stick. Windows may stall.