Vista Windows ReadyBoost

[Rottie]

I have been out of computer for almost 4 months and my friends lost my USB Flash keychain so I had to buy new 4GB SanDisk it comes with softwares not sure if it is worth and I inserted on my laptop it asked me if I want to use it for readyboost I wonder if it is worth or not? I use it to storage personal data to travel
I noticed readyboost takes up all of flash memory so no more room to store data on it

 

[tommo123]

you have 2GB of RAM right? i'd say no. i think tests showed if you have 1GB or less you would see a performance diff but any more ram than that and it doesnt really offer any advantage. i tried it ages ago with 2GB and it didnt do a damn thing. RAM is so dirt cheap now anyway (well, DDR2 i mean) that if you need a performance increase, upgrade to 4GB, hell 8GB is so cheap that i've thrown that into my system now

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Like tommo123 said, you probably won't notice any difference since you have more than 1GB system RAM. If you did decide to use it you can adjust the amount of the flash drive you wish to use for ReadyBoost.

http://islandgamers.wordpress....2/24/vista-readyboost/

 

[Scotteq]

ReadyBoost adds a nice capability to get marginal systems running better. If your system isn't marginal, though, there's not much in the way of gains to be had.

 

[Smilin]

On my 2 and 4gig system I only notice when I'm really loaded down with many many apps running at once. Basically if you get yourself to the point where you'll be paging a lot then readyboost kicks in to help.

Any other time and you'll need a benchmark to tell...the naked eye won't do.

 

[Rottie]

thank you so much guys I might try to disable or adjust the amount of ram. Yes I do have 2GB memory on my laptop.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Rottie
I had to buy new 4GB SanDisk it comes with softwares not sure if it is worth and I inserted on my laptop it asked me if I want to use it for readyboost I wonder if it is worth or not?

Guess I'm late to the party...

I've been using ReadyBoost on my lappy - ever since when!

Truthfully, I wouldn't bother using it on a desktop machine, but laptops/notebooks are a horse of a different color.

ReadyBoost kills a LOT of disk grinding!

While grinding is no big deal on a desktop machine (unless you like to stare at your disk activity light) Vista disk grinding will drive you crazy on a lappy, sooo...

If, for no other reason, I would strongly suggest running ReadyBoost on lappys. Even devoting just 1GB to it will make a huge difference!

 

[BD2003]

The thing about readyboost is that it needs to recreate the cache every time you boot or remove/put the stick back in. Most of that cache is redundant from the main memory cache (which is quick, silent and causes no grinding), the rest is filled from the HDD (the opposite, but its contents are potentially more useful since its not redundant). So itll kill some grinding, but itll cause a bit of its own when it starts up. So unless you have that stick in all the time, it's probably not going to be worthwhile.

You dont really *need* it with 2gb, but if you leave the stick in 24/7 (your lappy stays on your desk), it certainly wont hurt. And you can set it to use as much of the stick as you want, dynamically, so taking up space shouldnt be an issue.

 

[corkyg]

The Holiday iassue of "Maximum PC" goes over a lot of good and bad tweaks. Among them is ReadyBoost. Here is what they conclude: "Yes and no. If you have a reasonably modern system with even 1GB of RAM or more, you won't see any performance increase from ReadyBoost, which lets you use flash memory to cache disk operations. In fact, with lots of RAM, we saw a slight dip in performance when using ReadyBoost. With just 512MB of RAM, app load times, general performance can be modestly improved with ReadyBoost... but why not spring for some real DIMMs instead of this half-baked setup? You shouldn't be running Vista at all with so little RAM, nor should you be reading this magazine. 2GB of name brand RAM will cost you less than 50 bucks, pricier than a 2GB thumbdrive, but oh, so worth it.
Do It: - If you really want to run ReadyBoost, the easiest way to turn it on is to insert your thumbdrive and allow Autoplay to run. Select 'Speed up my system' from the menu. If you have Autoplay disabled, right-click the thumbdrive in the Computer view, select Properties, and choose the ReadyBoost tab. Dial ReadyBoost up to the maximum supported level of 4GB."

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: BD2003
The thing about readyboost is that it needs to recreate the cache every time you boot or remove/put the stick back in... So itll kill some grinding, but itll cause a bit of its own when it starts up. So unless you have that stick in all the time, it's probably not going to be worthwhile.

True!

I originally used a 1 GB Sony Memory Stick in my card reader for ReadyBoost. That worked fine, but when I boosted my RAM to 4 GB, I decided to up the size of ReadyBoost too.

LoL!

I bought a 4 GB Sony Memory Stick, but the TI card reader in my Toshiba lappy wouldn't recognize it. Sooo... my wife got a nice 4 GB Memory Stick for her Sony digital camera.

Next, I bought a 4 GB USB thumb drive. That worked fine too, but it made me nervous as hell hanging out the side of my lappy, especially on airplane snack trays. Sooo... that was relegated to my briefcase for sneaker net use.

Lastly, I tried a 4 GB Micro SDHC Flash Memory Card, and that was the winner! It sits in my card reader 24/7 and is dedicated to ReadyBoost use.

Anyway, you're right!

When I do a 'cold boot', it probably takes 5 minutes for the ReadyBoost card to fully populate, if you will. After that, everything chills... and that's the end of the disk grinding!

Before I ran across this magic combo, sometimes I ran ReadyBoost and sometimes I didn't, and I'm here to tell you, there is a world of difference in the amount of HD access on my lappy - running ReadyBoost or not!

As far as performance goes, I highly doubt that it makes an ounce of difference.

I've run Vista on 512 MB RAM and it borders on being unusable - nothing is going to help it!

I've also run Vista on 1, 2, and 4 GB RAM. 2 GB RAM with 1 GB ReadyBoost is the sweet spot, IMHO - but 4 GB RAM with 4 GB ReadyBoost is better - even if it requires a few minutes for everything to simmer down, when you first boot up.

I'll stop now!

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
When I do a 'cold boot', it probably takes 5 minutes for the ReadyBoost card to fully populate, if you will. After that, everything chills... and that's the end of the disk grinding!

This is unrelated to readyboost.

Readyboost makes (redundant, not unique) copies of pages that are placed in your pagefile. There is no additional "grinding" that takes place to make this happen. If your disk is going nuts writing things out to pagefile then it will do that whether readyboost is enabled or not.

Readyboost does not "pre-cache" anything on it's own.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: VinDSL
When I do a 'cold boot', it probably takes 5 minutes for the ReadyBoost card to fully populate, if you will. After that, everything chills... and that's the end of the disk grinding!

This is unrelated to readyboost.

Readyboost makes (redundant, not unique) copies of pages that are placed in your pagefile. There is no additional "grinding" that takes place to make this happen. If your disk is going nuts writing things out to pagefile then it will do that whether readyboost is enabled or not.

Readyboost does not "pre-cache" anything on it's own.

I'm not so sure about that. Pop a readyboost stick in, and go to the performance monitor, enable the heading, and watch the cache grow to fill the space you've allocated to it. It is most definitely precaching, although based on what I've seen, it doesnt hit the disk for it unless it has to - it'll fill from main memory at first, redundantly from what I assume to be the disk cache managed by superfetch, although thats only an educated guess.

It will certainly hit the disk at some point if you insert a stick with a larger capacity than main memory from my observations.

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

In somewhat related news Paul T. says Windows 7 is getting an enhanced Readyboost.

ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost first appeared in Windows Vista, providing users with a way to cheaply and easily improve the performance of their PCs by utilizing a USB memory key as a memory cache. In Windows 7, ReadyBoost is improved in numerous way: It supports multiple memory devices, can work with USB memory keys, Secure Digital (SD) memory cards, and other internal flash devices, and supports over 4 GB of storage.