Vista + More Memory?

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gizbug

Platinum Member
May 14, 2001
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At 2gig now. Any advantage to getting 1 or 2 gig usb stick to up the memory? Or am I better off buying some Corsair 2gig memory dimm?
 
Golgatha

Golgatha

Lifer
Jul 18, 2003
12,463
1,179
126
Unless you're using 64bit, 4GB of memory will partially go to waste. Also, in 32bit mode, only 2GB can be addressed to any one program at any given time. Also, getting a 2GB or 4GB USB disk will be substantially cheaper than 2GB of physical RAM and it will speed up the historically slowest storage medium in your computer.
 
B

BD2003

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
16,815
1
81
Originally posted by: spyordie007
And you're all missing the point. ReadyBoost (where you can add USB memory) IS NOT RAM, it's a cache so your computer doesn't have to take as frequent trips to the hard drive and therefore speeds up the access.

http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost

Adding USB Memory to ReadyBoost will not get you any additional RAM.
Click to expand...

And you're missing the point that since it's a disk cache, it also caches swap file pages, so it does have an effect on your memory situation.

Unless you're using 64bit, 4GB of memory will partially go to waste. Also, in 32bit mode, only 2GB can be addressed to any one program at any given time. Also, getting a 2GB or 4GB USB disk will be substantially cheaper than 2GB of physical RAM and it will speed up the historically slowest storage medium in your computer.
Click to expand...

Although a program can only use 2gb in 32bit, vista will use ALL of your ram to proactively cache things. With that much free ram, you could essentially precache entire games, so even though the game code itself wouldnt use all the memory, it will still be put to good use.

I wouldnt go as far as to say thatd be worth the money, and a usb is no replacement for ram, but there's no good reason NOT to use readyboost - it's cheap and it works.
 
Leros

Leros

Lifer
Jul 11, 2004
21,867
7
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I ReadyBoost really fast than caching to the drive?

In my experience, I can move a 200mb file around hard drive nearly instantly. The same copy to a flash drive takes 15-20 seconds.
 
B

BD2003

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
16,815
1
81
Originally posted by: Leros
I ReadyBoost really fast than caching to the drive?

In my experience, I can move a 200mb file around hard drive nearly instantly. The same copy to a flash drive takes 15-20 seconds.
Click to expand...

You can move a 200mb file around a HD nearly instantly because it doesnt move the file, it just changes the file table location. Try moving from one HD to another.

And youre right that HDs are MUCH faster writing sequential data than a USB stick, and in those cases, RB will get out of the way. But for random reads, a lot of which happen to be virtual memory pages (hence why its referred to as pseudo ram), the usb stick is infinitely faster.
 
Leros

Leros

Lifer
Jul 11, 2004
21,867
7
81
Originally posted by: BD2003
Originally posted by: Leros
I ReadyBoost really fast than caching to the drive?

In my experience, I can move a 200mb file around hard drive nearly instantly. The same copy to a flash drive takes 15-20 seconds.
Click to expand...

You can move a 200mb file around a HD nearly instantly because it doesnt move the file, it just changes the file table location. Try moving from one HD to another.
Click to expand...


Thats was I was talking about. I just copied a 600mb file from one hard drive to another and it took 15 seconds. The same file took 4 minutes to copy to a flash drive.
 
B

BD2003

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
16,815
1
81
Originally posted by: Leros
Originally posted by: BD2003
Originally posted by: Leros
I ReadyBoost really fast than caching to the drive?

In my experience, I can move a 200mb file around hard drive nearly instantly. The same copy to a flash drive takes 15-20 seconds.
Click to expand...

You can move a 200mb file around a HD nearly instantly because it doesnt move the file, it just changes the file table location. Try moving from one HD to another.
Click to expand...


Thats was I was talking about. I just copied a 600mb file from one hard drive to another and it took 15 seconds. The same file took 4 minutes to copy to a flash drive.
Click to expand...

Which shows you how much faster HDs are for sequential I/O. Thats not what RB is about...it's about the tiny little things that would give a hard drive head fits.

I've tested this myself:

Sequential read/writes 50-100mb/sec for HD vs. 10-20mb on a USB.
Random read/writes 0.5mb-1mb/sec for HD vs. 5-10mb on USB.

Random access times on a HD are ~ 10ms, but for a USB stick, it's probably best measure in micro/nano seconds.
 
Leros

Leros

Lifer
Jul 11, 2004
21,867
7
81
Originally posted by: BD2003
Which shows you how much faster HDs are for sequential I/O. Thats not what RB is about...it's about the tiny little things that would give a hard drive head fits.

I've tested this myself:

Sequential read/writes 50-100mb/sec for HD vs. 10-20mb on a USB.
Random read/writes 0.5mb-1mb/sec for HD vs. 5-10mb on USB.

Random access times on a HD are ~ 10ms, but for a USB stick, it's probably best measure in micro/nano seconds.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see you are right. I just ran HD Tach on both a hard drive and a flash drive.

Hard drive:
Sequential - 55 MB/s read speed
Random - 12.7 ms random access speed

Flash Drive:
Sequential - 12.8MB/s read speed
Random - 0.7ms random access speed
 
LintMan

LintMan

Senior member
Apr 19, 2001
474
0
71
Edit: removed some mistaken info I had...

To the OP - as others have said, adding a USB flash with ReadyBoost won't net you any more ram, but it can still help your system performance by speeding up some accesses to your memory swap file, if you're loading your system enough that it needs to do much page swapping.

Adding more ram would obviously be better because there'd be less memory swapping necessary (more ram = less need to swap to disk), but adding more ram can easily cost you hundreds if you buy decent ram, whereas you can buy a speedy 2GB USB flash for under $50. I just bought this one, Patriot 2GB 200x and it's fast as heck and only $31 after rebate. (I haven't tried ReadyBoost with it yet, because I'm using it for transferring files, but Vista does offer to use ReadyBoost with it when I insert it.) For that little, why not try it? Even if ReadyBoost doesn't do much for your system, having a nice USB thumb drive around can be pretty convenient.

 
B

bsobel

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Dec 9, 2001
13,346
0
0
Originally posted by: gizbug
At 2gig now. Any advantage to getting 1 or 2 gig usb stick to up the memory? Or am I better off buying some Corsair 2gig memory dimm?
Click to expand...

If you can only get one, get more physical memory. If you can get both, do. More memory will help our overall expierience. But the USB stick will help in situations (like reboot) where the ram cache doesn't exist yet.
 
T

the Chase

Golden Member
Sep 22, 2005
1,403
0
0
The only bummer with Readyboost is that the page file data still has to be written to the hard drive in addition to the USB stick. So the writes will still slow the system down. The reads will be much quicker as only the USB will be accessed. I know MS did it this way to be safe in case of power off or removal of USB stick, but for me I would rather take my chances and have the total speed up of not paging to the HD at all.
 
M

MrUniq

Senior member
Mar 26, 2006
307
0
0
it still beneficial for your HD since it reduces some spintime...prolonging it's life...i bet by the end of this year most MB's will have ready bost devices on them in addition to hybrid drives.
 
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