Question Regarding Flash-Drive Usage for System Memory

[Mark M Morse]

I've seen a few vague references to improving Vista's performance by
using a flash drive to augment available RAM for the operating
system.

Can somebody point me to a resource that provides basic details?

Specifically, I would like to know if there is an upper limit to the
number of GB that Vista can use for this purpose (i.e., purchasing
an 8GB flash drive instead of 4GB would perhaps be a waste of
money).

In addition, I would like to see some opinions about whether or not
a flash drive used in this way makes a noticeable difference with
Vista on higher-end systems (eg: TOSHIBA laptop, INTEL duo core
T2600 2.16GHZ with 2MB L2 cache, 2048MB DDR2 667MHz SDRAM, 7200RPM
serial-ATA HDD, NVIDIA GEOFORCE GO7600 256MB).

Cheers,

~ Mark

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Mark,

It's called ReadyBoost, and it's most effective on systems with smaller
amounts of ram. Specifically, it has to be flash memory with higher
read/write speeds, and it relies on the SuperFetch background process. The
max it can use is 4GB. You'll find a white paper here that gets into more
detail:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/perfaccel.mspx

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Dana Cline - MVP]

On a system with specs you describe, I don't think ReadyBoost would provide
a noticeable effect. You'd do better to root out all the crapware that
Toshiba may have included, and get some utilities to help tweak the
performance. Microsoft has a great free download called Autoruns.zip and
there's another free tool called TweakVi.

I couldn't get rid of all the junk on my HP, so I had to nuke and load Vista
again (and NOT from the restore disks), but now I have a fairly peppy
laptop.

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

 

[Julian]

On a system with specs you describe, I don't think ReadyBoost would
provide a noticeable effect. You'd do better to root out all the crapware
that Toshiba may have included, and get some utilities to help tweak the
performance. Microsoft has a great free download called Autoruns.zip and
there's another free tool called TweakVi.

I downloaded Autoruns and gave it a spin.
As a result I was able to identify loads of crapware
(literally dozens of elements) left over from trials of various
software tools that I have "uninstalled."

On rebooting it is hard to say that there is distinct performance
advantage but one thing is clear. I now have an extra 50mb+ of
available RAM.

5% extra RAM whilst not huge is, IMO, still beneficial.

 

[Dana Cline - MVP]

Try the TweakVI too, it's useful!

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

 

[Julian]

Try theTweakVI too, it's useful!

God! I hate top posting....
but, since you've been profitable up to now....

Yeah, I'll have a look but I've heard mixed,
to say the least, reports about it.

Cheers...
..

 

[AJR]

Mark - replies to your post are beginning to drift from your topic.
ReadyBoost does not augment RAM - it is used as an extension to paging by
"Suprfetch" - data the system determines to be in quick demand is sent to
the ReadyBoost device which , if it meets specs, provides faster access than
the HD.
ReadyBoost can be removed at any time without loss of data since the data
sent there is a copy - not original data - also the data sent to ReadyBoost
is encrypted while stored.

ReadyBoost works in concert with two other Ready--- items (names escape
me) - initially ReadyBoost may seem to slow things down a bit - besides
performing paging assistance it also monitors and tracks boot tasks and
over a period of time will increase boot performance.

BTW - Even though a ReadyBoost device is not installed the function is
active by default (I give up on that one!).