Readyboost questions...

[David]

I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything yet
that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it doesn't
reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see the
activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is there
some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's readyboost
cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by using
Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's indexed search
being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's features gonna work as
advertised????

Dave

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Using Windows ReadyBoost is not the same thing
as adding more system memory.
Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance
because it can retrieve data kept on the flash memory more
quickly than it can retrieve data kept on the hard disk,
decreasing the time you need to wait for your PC to respond.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

:

I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything yet
that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it doesn't
reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see the
activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is there
some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's readyboost
cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by using
Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's indexed search
being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's features gonna work as
advertised????

Dave

 

[David]

Using Windows ReadyBoost is not the same thing
as adding more system memory.
Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance
because it can retrieve data kept on the flash memory more
quickly than it can retrieve data kept on the hard disk,
decreasing the time you need to wait for your PC to respond.

and darn if i can find even ONE little thing that is faster on my system
since i enabled it. and believe me, I've been looking!!!

Dave

 

[Fred B.]

I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything yet
that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it doesn't
reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see the
activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is there
some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's readyboost
cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by using
Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's indexed search
being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's features gonna work as
advertised????

Dave

ReadyBoost caches disk reads onto a flash memory device, providing that
device meets Vista's requirements.

It's not additional memory (RAM). Open Explorer and click your card's
drive letter. If Readyboost is active you'll see a file named
"ReadyBoost.sfcache".

If it isn't there - From Explorer "right-click" on your card's drive
letter, choose properties, then the "readyboost" tab. You'll see a
"test" button. Click that and Vista will tell you if the card will work,
and if it does, select the cache size you'd like.

 

[David]

ReadyBoost caches disk reads onto a flash memory device, providing
that device meets Vista's requirements.

It's not additional memory (RAM). Open Explorer and click your card's
drive letter. If Readyboost is active you'll see a file named
"ReadyBoost.sfcache".

If it isn't there - From Explorer "right-click" on your card's drive
letter, choose properties, then the "readyboost" tab. You'll see a
"test" button. Click that and Vista will tell you if the card will
work, and if it does, select the cache size you'd like.

yes, the cache file is listed. i set the cache size to Vista's
recommended size which was most of the 1 GB available. now if i could
just see SOMETHING speed up, compared to w/o that cache enabled! sigh.

Dave

 

[Fred B.]

yes, the cache file is listed. i set the cache size to Vista's
recommended size which was most of the 1 GB available. now if i could
just see SOMETHING speed up, compared to w/o that cache enabled! sigh.

Dave

If you load Performance Monitor (PERFMON), then look at the "disk"
section you can see what activity is taking place - Reverse sort, so the
most active are at the top of your chart & you should see
"system/readyboost" somewhere near the top.

 

[Paul Randall]

I have not tried ReadyBoost, but from experience with some inexpensive
laptops, I've found their USB 2.0 speed to be much slower than my desktop
when connected to the same external hard drive. I think the boost will vary
greatly from one system to another. It is hard to say where the bottleneck
is. I don't know of any way to definitively measure the effect of
ReadyBoost.

-Paul Randall

 

[David]

If you load Performance Monitor (PERFMON), then look at the "disk"
section you can see what activity is taking place - Reverse sort, so
the most active are at the top of your chart & you should see
"system/readyboost" somewhere near the top.

yup, I just did that and saw it show up for a bit, with a response time
of 259 ms. all the other response times are 0,1, and 2 ms.

Thanks, Fred!

Dave

 

[Fred B.]

yup, I just did that and saw it show up for a bit, with a response time
of 259 ms. all the other response times are 0,1, and 2 ms.
Thanks, Fred!

Dave

There are lots of articles about ReadyBoost on the Web. Here's one I
found that I thought sounded pretty accurate in that it basically
describes what I've found here.

 

[dennis@home]

and darn if i can find even ONE little thing that is faster on my system
since i enabled it. and believe me, I've been looking!!!

Well it won't speed up your system boot because SD cards are removable media
so Vista assumes it may be removed and can't rely on it.

After that any performance change really depends on what your system is..
how much RAM?
If you have >2G you are going to struggle with getting any improvement from
readyboost.

 

[Fred B.]

There are lots of articles about ReadyBoost on the Web. Here's one I
found that I thought sounded pretty accurate in that it basically
describes what I've found here.

LOL

Forgot to paste the link:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070307/readyboost-works/

 

[David]

Well it won't speed up your system boot because SD cards are removable
media so Vista assumes it may be removed and can't rely on it.

After that any performance change really depends on what your system is..
how much RAM?
If you have >2G you are going to struggle with getting any improvement
from readyboostI

I have 2 Gigs of RAM. I could try it in my wife's laptop--hers has 1GB
are there any hybrid drives for laptops yet? Aren't hybrids supposed to
speed up boot up in Vista?
Dave

 

[dennis@home]

I have 2 Gigs of RAM. I could try it in my wife's laptop--hers has 1GB
are there any hybrid drives for laptops yet? Aren't hybrids supposed to
speed up boot up in Vista?

They are..
I have TurboMemory installed so I have a virtual hybrid drive.
I have no idea if it actually makes a difference as I haven't timed it.
In fact I have yet to discover if it is working at all as it doesn't appear
on the performance tools.

 

[Spirit]

I have a 1.8 gig readyboost drive running and also have 2 gig of RAM
and I can tell the difference.... you definitely need a fast drive and few
fit that requirement.

http://www.grantgibson.co.uk/misc/readyboost/

http://www.activewin.com/reviews/hardware/memory/vista/readyboost.shtml

 

[jonathan perreault]

to me ready boost doesn't work like it says when i used it i notice that the
cpu was working twices as much as before while nothing was running it was
making computer slower

 

[Lang Murphy]

yes, the cache file is listed. i set the cache size to Vista's
recommended size which was most of the 1 GB available. now if i could
just see SOMETHING speed up, compared to w/o that cache enabled! sigh.

Dave

By MS's own admission, RB is going to benefit those systems with less RAM,
not more.

See: http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx, a good
starting point.

Lang