Extra memory using memory stick in XP?

[Mark]

Hello there,

A friend at work mentioned that in Vista it is possible to use a memory
stick plugged into a USB port to act as extra memory (RAM). Though he
believes this is not available in XP as standard he thought there is a
download to facilitate this. I'm using XP Home. If this is the case can
anyone point me in the right direction?

Mark.

 

[Bob I]

You would need to install Vista, and it is called Ready-Boost. It
doesn't work the way you think, and this feature doesn't exist in XP
natively nor through an add in.

 

[smlunatick]

You would need to install Vista, and it is called Ready-Boost. It
doesn't work the way you think, and this feature doesn't exist in XP
natively nor through an add in.

I read a post, in this newsgroup last, that some other company had
made a XP version of the ReadyBoost system.

 

[ED]

I believe that what your friend is refering to is Readyboost. This is a
native feature of Windows Vista, and not XP.

There is a 3rd party application, called eBoostr, that claims to do that the
same thing for Windows XP. I have not tested it and cannot vouch for it. Try
it at your own risk.

http://www.eboostr.com/

 

[Unknown]

Is that another money making scam? (gimmick?) What's wrong with virtual
memory that is present in all Windows OS?

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

accessing a cache
is faster than ram
in some cases.



--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That website certainly has some impressive *claims*, but I have a real
problem, under the heading "Utilize Available RAM Better" where they make
mention of "making use of otherwise wasted free RAM", and "(paraphrased)
if my computer has *over* 1GB of memory, I'll see a significant increase in
speed and responsiveness". I think that should say, if I have over 1GB
installed, I *may not* see much improvement in performance.

Those two statements would make me run like *ell from their products.

--
HTH,

Curt

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://www.aumha.org/
http://dundats.mvps.org/AutoIt/default.aspx

message |I believe that what your friend is refering to is Readyboost. This is a
| native feature of Windows Vista, and not XP.
|
| There is a 3rd party application, called eBoostr, that claims to do that
the
| same thing for Windows XP. I have not tested it and cannot vouch for it.
Try
| it at your own risk.
|
| http://www.eboostr.com/
|
| "Mark" wrote:
|
| > Hello there,
| >
| > A friend at work mentioned that in Vista it is possible to use a memory
| > stick plugged into a USB port to act as extra memory (RAM). Though he
| > believes this is not available in XP as standard he thought there is a
| > download to facilitate this. I'm using XP Home. If this is the case can
| > anyone point me in the right direction?
| >
| > Mark.

 

[ED]

I would certainly agree with you on this. The claims are pretty out there.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello there,

A friend at work mentioned that in Vista it is possible to use a memory
stick plugged into a USB port to act as extra memory (RAM). Though he
believes this is not available in XP as standard he thought there is a
download to facilitate this. I'm using XP Home. If this is the case can
anyone point me in the right direction?

It's called ReadyBoost. Your friend either doesn't understand what
ReadyBoost is or he's misleading you. ReadyBoost does not simply work
as extra RAM. For information on what it is, read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is available in Vista, but not XP, and if there's any way
to do something similar in XP, I don't know of it.

But it doesn't much matter, because ReadyBoost is a poor idea for
almost everyone. The following is my standard message (for Vista
users) on ReadyBoost:

My advice is not to use ReadyBoost no matter how much RAM you have.

If you have 2GB or more of RAM, the little it might do for you is so
slight as to be almost unnoticeable.

And if you have less than 2GB of RAM, you would do much better to
spend your money on upgrading your RAM to 2GB than on buying a device
for ReadyBoost use.

So, in general, I always recommend against using ReadyBoost.

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

Ready Boost isn't a
replacement for ram.

it is however a ram cache
and faster than caching
to the hard disk.

regardless of how much
ram a system has, caching
will always be needed.

I've seen Ready Boost in
action and will continue to
utilize it.

-----------


if you are going to try out
the third party version for
win xp, then be sure to
report back with your
assessment.

a couple of points to keep
in mind:

1) utilize the basic version of
the trial ware and keep away
from the version that provides
the additional services.

2) be sure to have a backup
of your system and

3) dedicate 100% of the space
of the flash device.

you don't want to have any personal
files on the device while sharing it
with that caching program/service.
--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[John John (MVP)]

Ready Boost isn't a
replacement for ram.

it is however a ram cache
and faster than caching
to the hard disk.

That is not exactly accurate, ReadyBoost is a cache for "portions" of
the Pagefile. While one can say that in the end caching the pagefile
may be tantamount to caching the RAM it is still misleading to say that
ReadyBoost is a cache for the RAM.

Very quickly said and without going into the nitty gritty of the Windows
Memory Manager the pagefile is a cache of items moved out of RAM and
ReadyBoost is a cache of the pagefile, or more specifically it is a
cache of portions of the pagefile. There is absolutely nothing that is
not in the pagefile that is on the USB stick. Anything needing to be
moved (cached) out of RAM is not moved to ReadyBoost or the USB stick,
it is moved to the pagefile. ReadyBoost is then used as a disk cache of
sorts for the pagefile or for portions of the pagefile. If the Memory
Manager later needs to fetch the paged memory pages it will get it from
the faster of the the two caches, random reads are faster on flash
drives but sequential reads are faster on hard disks.

John