How to reduce I/O operations to a flash drive?

Question

Background

I often use different computers, and for that reason I like to aways keep with me a flash drive with my home directory, with my bash aliases and helpful functions, vimrc, Homebrew applications, etc. And I like to use it as my actual $HOME.

Unfortunately most workstations I use does not have USB 3.0, and that makes unpractical to use some applications (browsers for instance). On the other hand, they have enough RAM to load all my home without occupying 1/3 of it.

Question

There is any way of reducing I/O operations and use more RAM instead?

I read in some (not very trustworthy) forum that using Btrfs with compression enabled would help. This make any scene?