It makes very little differance unless you have lees than 1GB of RAM. Also USB Flash Drives do have limited life span so constant use which it would be whenever its switched on and the USB is pluged in.
With the low cost of RAM at the present time it would not only be faster and cheaper but it is also not effected by the amount of Reads/Writes before it dies.
Jannerhank
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General discussion
What is Windows ReadyBoost and does it improve performance?
Hi, I recently bought a new laptop with Windows Vista and I would like to improve the speed of it. Some one mentioned to me that using Windows ReadyBoost using a USB flash drive to boost performance. But left with many questions unanswered in hopes that you can help me. What exactly is ReadyBoost and what does it do exactly to help boost performance? Does it really work that well? I know it requires a USB flash drive or card, but does it make a difference what kind of drive I should use or does it require something that is fast? How much memory should I consider for the flash drive? I've gone through the Internet and read a few articles that mentioned that ReadyBoost does initially help performance in the beginning, but over time the performance gains starts to deteriorate. Is this true? If that's the case, is it even worth getting into? Any help and explanations will be helpful. Thank you in advance.
Submitted by Garrett G.
Here are some member answer to start, but please do read on in the discussion thread for many more members' experiences and advice.
ReadyBoost--the good, the bad, and the ugly...
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=295770&messageID=2779871#2779871
ReadyBoost is a bit overrated.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=295770&messageID=2780295#2780295
If you have the answer for Garrett, please click on the reply link and submit your answer. Please be as detailed as possible when submitting your answers. Thanks!!
Discussion is locked
31 - 60 of 124 Posts
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Readyboost is, IMO, something that will only yield a marginal gain in performance. Yes, it does boost performance, but overall, it won't be something that you will notice outright. It won't make your laptop twice as fast as it was. If anything the gains would be fairly limited to maybe a 10% boost.
That said, you WILL need to do some research on the drive you're planning on buying. Not ALL flash drives are built the same. Most of your older drives just won't cut it. Many of the newer ones out now that are cheap probably won't cut it either.
Sony (Yeah. yeah. I know... boo!! hiss!!!) for all evil stuff they've done in the recent past does make a fairly good flash drive that IS ReadyBoost compatible and works fairly well. The drive itself is fairly tiny and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb - so it can be left in the USB port without fear of having it getting damaged.
Look for the MicroVault Tiny line.
There are things, however, that you might want to look at doing before going out and buying a ReadyBoost drive. That would include:
1.) Removing the junk and crapware from your PC. Most laptops these days are plagued with tons of trial-ware, junk and other useless promotional apps that do little, except suck up resources and bog down performance. Ed Bott on C-Net's sister site, ZDNet did an article on this recently and the difference is night and day.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=429
Mind you, his ultimate solution was to format the hard drive and install a clean copy of the operating system. While it's probably the best possible solution, you should get a decent amount of gain by just removing the offending junk.
2.) Defrag your hard drive. Simple, obvious... 'Nuff said.
3.) Configure apps to only run when you need them. As an example or two, why WinZip and Acrobat Reader need a stub application running in the background all the time is beyond me. Disable Google's Updater service if at all possible. There's just NO need for it running all the time. Look in the system tray and see what programs are running there and do whatever you can to eliminate things from starting up except for those things that are absoloutely necessary. The less crap you've got running, the faster the machine will be.
Keep in mind, most laptops aren't designed to be barn burners. They're designed for a balance between performance and battery life.
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Well I plugged in a 1Gb flashdrive to a 1Gb RAM laptop and got a dramatic change in performance! It went from crippled to limping in 1 bound!
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Readyboost effectively functions as an extra (memory) cache for files that Windows Vista notices you using.
Flash drives have a limited life number of erase and writes.
Flash drives connected via USB run faster than getting data from a hard drive surface, but more slowly than main memory.
Rather than letting Windows wear out the flash memory, why not put your applications on the USB drive (A single writing session) , and run the applications from that drive.
That way Windows carries on using the hard drive for itself, and the occasional data file, while the application being loaded from the USB drive means there is no need for Windows to pause it's own use of the hard drive in order to read the application programs from the hard drive, and Windows does not then need to reduce the life of the USB memory stick by writing those files to it.. They are already there!
AND.. That works under XP and Me, 98 and 2K as well as it works under Vista
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The same comments apply to eBooster, a ReadyBoost equivelent that runs under XP.
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"Rather than letting Windows wear out the flash memory, why not put your applications on the USB drive (A single writing session) , and run the applications from that drive."
I personally do not see what the deal is. Given estimated 10 year to wear it out, it will be obsolete long before that time and you will go and purchase a larger capacity long before it's worn out. As for the speed someone mentioned, that usb drive I do not believe will load a file faster than your hard drive. 480K versus my SATA 3.0g
I don't believe so.
Maybe someone with all the brain power can explain
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We know:
The Readyboost feature uses memory from the USB Flash Drive to supplement the computers RAM.
USB has the capacity to run at 480 mb/per sec if only 1 device is connected (usb speed is shared between each device).
Sata drives can run at speeds of 300mb/per sec.
IDE drives can run at speeds of maximum 133 mb/per sec with UDMA 6.
System RAM can run at speeds from 6.4 gb/per sec to 15 gb/per sec at the top end.
Any USB flash drive that you buy will NOT be able to run at the maximum speed offered by the USB. Instead it will run at the speed indicated by the flash drives manufacturer. Some are faster then others.
Variables:
The speed and size of the flash drive.
The speed and size of your current RAM.
The speed and size of your current hard drive.
Theory:
Since RAM these days runs at considerably faster speeds then our hard drives and flash drives the best option would to buy more RAM if you are lacking.
If you cant buy more ram and are still lacking, then buy a flash drive that says its readyboost compatible. It will use your flash drives memory the same way as it does for RAM but it will run slower then if real RAM was storing that information.
I have found a more convenient way of using my flash drive.
I have enough RAM to suite all my needs but i use only one hard drive.
I assign my page file to use only my flash drives memory and therefore free's up a lot of read and write time for my only hard drive, which runs the operating system. A more effective way of doing this would be if you had multiple hard drives to set the pagefile onto a drive that doesnt store much information that you actively use.
Also remember that most hard drives have multiple platters inside of them which make up your memory. Each platter has its own read and write heads therefore being able to act independantly of the other platters. Most acer laptops use this fact to their advantage by creating a separate partition for each platter on the hard drive.
By doing this you are able to set your pagefile to a platter on your drive that can read and write at the same time as any other platter reading or writing applications data.
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No, the heads inside a hard drive DO NOT act independently. There is only one actuator arm inside a drive which moves all heads simultaneously. Also, a drive only has one data connector to the system with one data stream. In order to do what you want, you will need to have another physical drive attached to it's own channel.
Furthermore, partitions cannot be segregated to an individual platter in a hard drive. Disk space is allocated into cylinders which span all the platters.
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"The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device." Quoted from http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx about flash drives
"SATA 3Gb/s
3000MHz embedded clock
x 1 bit per clock
x 80% for 8b10b encoding
/ 8 bits per byte
= 300 Mbytes/sec" Compliments of http://www.serialata.org/3g.asp
350 is a bigger number than 300...so yeah I would say it is faster. I love when other people do the work for me and all I have to do is find it before making an ignorant comment.
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Obviously I have my own issues- The point I was trying to make is that the 3G is faster and I was happy that I did not argue before looking up the facts.
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i have personally used ready boost, with a 2 gig usb, and there is a very slight difference. but not enough to really go off the deep end for it, even at the cheap price of $ 24.00 price tag of the chip.
one down side i found, was that if you do get a nasty virus, and you think you beat it, such as the blue screen of death. it will hide within the usb readyboost chip, lay waiting ti strike again. and once it's in there, the only way to remove it, is to lay it on the floor, and do a tap dance upon it.
truly, the best way to get more speed, and better control of the cpu, is to simply have enough memory, and proper processor right from the get go. but remember to the average user, more speed, faster goof's!
werdonmorris@yahoo.com. have a blessed day.
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I did exactaly the same thing. My shiny new toshiba satelite was a great deal but maxed out loading the programns. The solution was shopping the net for a pair of 2mg ram cards which were easy to install and instantly put the new zip back in the machine.
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Got a Toshiba Satellite as gift, and hated the Vista, so my local tech shop installed an up to date XP and I'm flying!
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I am sorry ,,but anyone that is useing windows Vista,,
go back to windows 2000,, or XP,
I hate Vista,, it is slow, it is fustrating to use. I hate it.
Going back to windows 2000.. sorry for anyone useing it.
There is to many bugs for it,, or go with a MACK.. way better.
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This was supposed to be about ReadyBoost, not Vista bashing. There are a sickening number of other sites where you can play that game. I still have a computer that runs XP, but it's time to move on. BTW, that other brand is Mac, not Mack (and I'm sick of hearing about it too).
For myself, I have found Vista to be just fine, and I'm running some pretty demanding software on it, including a major memory hog, MS Flight Simulator X. Before I added a 3rd GB of RAM, I used a 2 GB ReadyBoost drive while playing FSX and it made a noticeable difference. There were far fewer "stutters" and pauses while scenery was being loaded, which made for a much smoother-running game. I was also able to pause FSX, and then run one or two other programs simulaneously while using ReadyBoost.
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We also remember the entire windows debacle from 3.1 to Vista. A constant barrage of updates, patches and things to, supposedly, make it work better. All we ever got were balkier machines. This may be what we are trying to tell you.
ReadyBoost may be a good thing for some, apparently though, not for everyone.
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The point of ready boost is that it uses your flash memory rather than writing to your hard drive, this saves battery power and increases speed to an extent.
Don't expect anything major when using. If anything, what I've noticed is not that the computer runs faster but that it lags less.
I don't use a thumbdrive, however, my HP DV9000 has a built in card reader, I use an Ultra SD 2gig card. It's great because it doesn't take up USB spaced, doesn't hang out the side to be busted off and never has to be removed (because I don't use the card reader for anything else!)
You need a fast flash card for Ready Boost. When you plug in the device the system will ask if you want to speed up your system using ready boost. If you do and your device is not fast enough, Vista will tell you.
I bought my Ultra SD card for $20. I paid $200 for my 4gig of ram, so you see the cost benefits. However MS suggest you use one to four times your ram size for Ready Boost. My ram is 4gigs, so my Ready Boost devices should be 4 - 16 gigs! See, Ready Boost works best on computers that are memory deficient. However, I know the computer uses it, even when my RAM uses is at 35% I'll see the light on my SD drive flashing like mad, telling me that it's using ready-boost memory.
If you can afford it I would loost at two things first, can you upgrade the RAM, and how fast is your HD? I upgraded from sluggish, factory 2gig ram to 5-5-5-15 4gig (2x2)ram. My system zoomed!It was expensive ram, but suddenly I could play games like Bioshock at full resolution without dropping frames, on my notebook!
The other thing is your HD speed. Many computers, to save money, come with HD that spin at 5400 rpm. Update to a 7200 rpm drive! If I really wanted to speed up my HP DV9000 it has two HD bays, I could put matched set of SATA 7200 HD's in it, and configure as a RAID array, then the two HD would run as one and double my read speed.
You can also go into you system settings and make sure you have at least 4gig of Virtual Memory allocated on your HD. Virtual memory allows you computer to use you HD like RAM. If you VM settings are low, the system keeps deleting and re-writing information, if it's high it can write a lot to the HD once and keep reading back from it until the space is full.
Using all these tools helps. Also, use "Start" "Run" to get a command prompt, type "msconfig" this brings up a menu of programs that start in the background and eat memory when you're computer is on. Some things, like WLAN or Anti-virus you want, others like "i-pod assistant" can get un-checked! You can also disable Vista's ultra-annoying UAC control (those damn, I need your permission to do anything pop-ups) here! Select carefully functions you don't want starting with windows (they'll still run if you start them manually) and re-boot.
Good luck.
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Readyboost really works! Get a 4 gigabyte size for the maximum benefit. It works by acting as a very high speed buffer. You didn,t mention whta you PC RAM memeory is, but if not at 2 gigabytes you should upgrade your memory size also.
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The key to good Vista performance--performance with any Windows version--is adequate RAM (2 GB on my Vista machine seems to be fine. I have tried Ready Boost and it MIGHT have made a difference, but not enough to notice and so I stopped bothering. You can use a USB flash drive OR, if your machine has a memory card reader, you can use flash memory like SD cards as well.
The amount of extra ram that you can "add" this way is also limited to the total amount of RAM that Vista can use. So if you have only 1GB of RAM in your machine, you can use a 1 or 2 GB flash card or flash drive. Adding more won't do much and may actually slow things down. If you already have 2 GB of RAM, then you can add another 1 GB of Ready Boost.
It will be interesting to see what others say, but I have not seen any real "boost" with Ready Boost.
But to sum it up, the best way is to add RAM to your machine.
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Adds 5% improvement with standard 2gb sd fhash dr. It's worth the $10 paid for the card.
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have pny 4gb drive using for ready boost don't see an appreciable difference in boot times. mine takes a while regardless
dell e520 dual core 1.86 G 4 GB DDR ..2, SATA 750 GB hard drives using vista ultimate /xp media center edition vistaboot pro
2 dvd +/- R drives. One is LG Blu Ray/HD read also other is NEC optiarc SONY +/- drive as well.
Takes a long time booting regardless going thru boot screen before choices appear. Ran all avail tweaks to make things faster. This might be as good as it gets! buying quad 6600 processor in future as $ allows.
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I had exactly the same problem. Bought a new laptop via PC World equipped with Vista and 1 gig of RAM.Within one week I became convinced that Vista is the biggest "con" in the history of computing !!!
Vista is slower than XP Pro - Vista takes far more space on your hard drive - Vista is no more secure than XP - Vista just looks a little "prettier" to the eye.
As I run mostly Digital Photography software on my laptop and my desktop computers and know that such software is always very "RAM hungry" I put in another 1 Gig of RAM and stripped off the complete Vista package and replaced it with XP Pro. The answer - NO MORE PROBLEMS !!! the laptop zips along with Photoshop CS3, Elements 6 and Lightroom 1.3. Also, I no longer have any problems finding drivers for my various peripherals, in fact due to the advent of Vista I have been able to pick up some amazing bargains on the Internet e.g. a Polaroid Sprintscan 35mm film scanner for
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Had you upgraded to 2MB of RAM and KEPT Vista you likely would have found that Vista's speed and responsiveness had improved.
Why do you say Vista is no more secure than XP? How do you know?
Re: drivers. Yes, of course you have to make sure that when you change to a new OS that the mfgs of your old peripherals have released new drivers. Some do, some don't. If you upgraded to Vista and didn't check this out first, you didn't do enough research. The same applied when we changed from Win98 to Win XP. Nothing new.
Your experience DOES matter, but I think that you jumped to unfortunate conclusions. I upgraded my notebook from XP to Vista and, while it takes about 15 seconds longer to boot, once I'm in, Vista is smoother and more responsive that XP ever was - on the same hardware. Vista allows me to keep working in situations when I was watching an hourglass in XP.
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No, Vista is no more secure than XP. The only difference is the blame. When you are hacked, well, you thought it was ok to agree to a clever pop-up that you thought was safe. Aw, you should have said no.
Upgrading ram on any OS to it's limits improves performance. So? Equivalent hardware yields superior performance on XP. Anything else is a salesman's lie.
Vista is just one step away from the ultimate safe OS. Rather than fix, they have blocked so many otherwise useful function in the name of "safety" that the next step to insure your security is to just flip the darn computer off.
There. Rest easy.
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I get so tired of hearing how horrible Vista is when in reality if you KNOW how to use it, and to uninstall the uninstall Vista file, it runs absolutely wonderfully. Also, there isn't a scanner or periphial out there that hasn't put out an upgrade for vista users, the key to installing them is not to follow Windows prompts but to actually follow the installation instructions that the specific manufacturer for that product gives you to follow for an older scanner or anything else that needs an updated Vista driver.
Check out Tech Republic - they've got how to articles that take 10 minutes to really get to know Vista, the difference between Vista and XP, and the increased self maintenance/update capabilities that Vista has included. There are so many functions and capabilities that are included in Vista I'm amazed at the amount of people out there who don't take the time to learn the product they bought, so they are buying programs that are already included in Vista. As for memory, if you've got anything less than 1 GB you're not going to go anywhere fast in today's virtual world. 2 GB is plenty fast and as another user suggested, take all of the programs out of the start up menu that don't need to be started when you turn on your computer. I have 2 laptops and now that I've been using Vista for 1 1/2 years, I hate touching the XP laptop. Simple things like "explore" are so much more user friendly in Vista, and that's just one of the many functions that was improved. There are too many people in this world that cannot handle change - whether it's an improvement or not, just because they don't know how it works. Everything in XP is in Vista AND MUCH MORE!
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Man...I really agree there, I too m sick of hearing how lame Vista is when in every case it's simply a matter of ther user not knowing what he/she is doing. If some of these people would just take the time to learn Vista better it would relieve a lot of needless complaining.
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