Readyboost experience

[Jake]

My computer has 3 GB RAM memory. As a test I installed a Kingston 4GB USB
2.0 flashdrive to be used as a readyboost. Although I use programs like
Photoshop en Coreldraw, the performance increase seems zero.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "Jake"

My computer has 3 GB RAM memory. As a test I installed a Kingston 4GB USB
2.0 flashdrive to be used as a readyboost. Although I use programs like
Photoshop en Coreldraw, the performance increase seems zero.

That's typical. Try it with 512MB of RAM and see what happens...

 

[Jake]

In message <[email protected]> "Jake"


That's typical. Try it with 512MB of RAM and see what happens...

Why would a smaller size flashdrive be better in this case?

 

[Michael D]

I recall this link with readyboost info.
http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx

"Q: How much of a speed increase are we talking about?
A: Well, that depends. On average, a RANDOM 4K read from flash is about 10x
faster than from HDD. Now, how does that translate to end-user perf? Under
memory pressure and heavy disk activity, the system is much more responsive;
on a 4GB machine with few applications running, the ReadyBoost effect is
much less noticable."

 

[Michael D]

I was curious about DevilsPGD's comment and did a search and found this link
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=6 , which seems to
show readyboost is really only worth it if your system only has 512MB of
ram.

 

[AJR]

ReadyBoost is not an addditon to RAM - it works in concert with
"Superfetch", successor to XPs "Prefetch".

Performance depends mainly on two items 1. HD Read/Write specs - if HD index
is 4+ Readyboost is not enabled. 2. Non-sequential Read/Writes are
"directed" to the ReadyBoost device - sequential to the HD - therefore
performance boost will depend on type of HD activity. (Ref: Vista Resource
Kit)

Some USB decvices have a LED which will indicate the degree of activity.

 

[Richard Urban]

RAM and flash drive are two different entities. Read the post to which you
are responding again. (-:

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "Jake"

Why would a smaller size flashdrive be better in this case?

I meant smaller amount of system RAM, not flash drive... ReadyBoost is
only really useful for machines which are under-spec'd to begin with.

Older laptops are the best example, minimal amount of RAM, and almost as
important, slow hard drives. Pop in a 4200rpm drive and you might see a
difference, with a 7200rpm drive (especially a large modern one -- Size
matters, as larger drives with the same number of platters have higher
densities, and as a result actually do perform better) you just won't
see much benefit.

 

[Bill Leary]

My computer has 3 GB RAM memory. As a test I installed a Kingston 4GB USB
2.0 flashdrive to be used as a readyboost. Although I use programs like
Photoshop en Coreldraw, the performance increase seems zero.

I was running Vista Ultimate on a five year old motherboard with 1.8Ghz CPU,
512M RAM and a slow FSB. Put in a fast 2G USB flash drive. Readyboost made
a quite noticeable difference. On occasion, the system would "loose" the
USB device, and I could always tell when it did by the change in
performance.

Upgraded the machine to 1G RAM and it was still noticeable, but not quite as
much.

Replaced the mobo with one with a fast FSB, 2.2GHz CPU and 2G RAM and wasn't
able to notice any difference with or without the USB drive installed, with
one exception. The machine booted noticeably faster with the USB drive as
opposed to without it. That's not Readyboost, of course, and since I hardly
ever reboot this machine, I decided I had other uses for the 2G USB drive.

- Bill