ReadyBoost usability

G

Guest

Mark:

Darren Yates - APCUser January 2007 wrote....

"Vista performs speed checks on your USB
flash drive first before allowing you to use it as
a ReadyBoost device. According to Matt Eyers,
ReadyBoost program manager for Vista, if the
flash drive cannot hit 2.3Mb per second (Mb/s)
data throughput on 4Kb random reads and 1.7Mb/s
on 512Kb random writes, it won't work."

Darren Yates also said, "we used a 1Gb Sony
MicroVault Tiny which is one of the many
ReadyBoost compatible flask drives on the market",
in our tests.

So you are right. And buyer beware !

..........................................................................
 
R

Robert Pendell

black said:
Sorry I haven't tried it. I'm using a 2GB LG flash drive:
http://us.lge.com/products/model/de...obile media_usb thumb drives_UBVB2GS01L.jhtml
It has an 8MB/sec write and 10MB/sec read speed. It works but I haven't
noticed any major improvements to performance, then again I haven't really
put it to the test.
Do you know of any good benchmark software I could use to test it?
Click to expand...

I used a PNY 512MB usb stick I had lying around and I actually saw my
performance degrade. Go figure.
 
J

John Barnett MVP

To be honest i can't get any of mine to work. In the early beta's i used a
256MB integral USB stick (yes i know 256MB) and it actually worked. In later
builds it didn't.

I've just received a SanDisk Cruzer Micor 2GB (supposedly enhanced for
Windows Vista readyboost) and even that doesn't allow readyboost to work.


--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
G

Guest

I imagine you've already checked but when I first inserted my flash drive it
wouldn't work with readyboost, then I checked the properties and for some
reason it was set to "Optimize for quick removal." When I switched to
"optimize for performance" and retested the drive for readyboost it started
working.
 
B

Brian W

I've found that using ReadyBoost slows down the boot-up time as it has to
cache onto the memory stick when the Desktop is loading.
 
J

John Barnett MVP

Strangely i've got it working too now. I inserted the flash drive into the
USB port and, after the drivers where installed asked it to use the flash
drive for readyboost. The system resfused saying it wasn't compatible
(performance wise). So instead of removing the flash drive i left it in
situ. Later i went to the flash drive properties and still it said 'not
compatible'. After about 30 minutes with the flash drive inserted in the USB
port i visited the flash drive propeties again and, low and behold, it asked
me how much space i wanted to allocate.

I left the flash drive in situ and closed down. When i rebooted the flash
drive light didn't come on. Once i reached the desktop the flash drive light
was still not on, so i disconnected the flash drive and reconnected then it
worked. So fat, this morning, i haven't had any issues with it. I can't see
any performance enhancements, but i believe it takes some considerable time,
and useage of the flash drive, before any performance increase is seen.

I already have 1.5GB of RAM so don't really need readyboots but i had to
make sure the option worked.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
G

Guest

Your dead right about that. It takes about ten times as long for my computer
to boot with readyboost in place. It's fine in a restart but be warned DO NOT
TURN YOUR COMPUTER ON with ready boost in place, unless you want to be
hypnotized by the flashing blue light on your readyboost drive while you
stare at a blank screen.
 
J

Jim

Strangely i've got it working too now. I inserted the flash drive into the
USB port and, after the drivers where installed asked it to use the flash
drive for readyboost. The system resfused saying it wasn't compatible
(performance wise). So instead of removing the flash drive i left it in
situ. Later i went to the flash drive properties and still it said 'not
compatible'. After about 30 minutes with the flash drive inserted in the USB
port i visited the flash drive propeties again and, low and behold, it asked
me how much space i wanted to allocate.

I left the flash drive in situ and closed down. When i rebooted the flash
drive light didn't come on. Once i reached the desktop the flash drive light
was still not on, so i disconnected the flash drive and reconnected then it
worked. So fat, this morning, i haven't had any issues with it. I can't see
any performance enhancements, but i believe it takes some considerable time,
and useage of the flash drive, before any performance increase is seen.

I already have 1.5GB of RAM so don't really need readyboots but i had to
make sure the option worked.
Click to expand...


I have 4GB RAM, and ReadyBoost makes absolutely no difference. I was
hoping Vista would be smart enough to shove some of the swapfile onto
that drive but it doesn't. So I have 4GB RAM, and a 4GB USB drive for
ReadyBoost, and yet I have a 1.6GB of hard drive being used for a
swapfile!

It's no slouch either, its's a Lexar unit, the fastest one they make
(Lightning?).

I've used the ReadyBoost drive for over a month now, and it achieves
nothing, so I'd decided to reallocate it being a memory-stick again!



Jim
 
M

MICHAEL

Jim said:
I have 4GB RAM, and ReadyBoost makes absolutely no difference. I was
hoping Vista would be smart enough to shove some of the swapfile onto
that drive but it doesn't. So I have 4GB RAM, and a 4GB USB drive for
ReadyBoost, and yet I have a 1.6GB of hard drive being used for a
swapfile!

It's no slouch either, its's a Lexar unit, the fastest one they make
(Lightning?).

I've used the ReadyBoost drive for over a month now, and it achieves
nothing, so I'd decided to reallocate it being a memory-stick again!
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, once you get to about 1.5GB to 2GB RAM, ReadyBoost
doesn't really make a difference. As much as it is talked about, I really
think it is an overly hyped feature that won't benefit too many.


-Michael
 
J

John Barnett MVP

Michael you are right, Readyboost is over hyped. During the early beta tests
my machine only had 512 MB RAM so readyboost was an ideal candidate for my
machine. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations and so i
removed the USB stick and converted it back to a storage device.

As you say with 1.5GB to 4GB you are actually wasting a flash drive trying
to use readyboost because there is no measureable performance gain.

I have to admit that, on my machine, i haven't seen a slowing down during
system startup and, as my flash stick is connected to my mousemat i hardly
notice the flashing 'yellow in my case' light on the flash drive.

Still it was only a test and, as the saying goes 'been there, done that, got
the tee shirt - time to move one!'

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
M

MICHAEL

I think if a user has an extra USB stick and wants to see
if ReadyBoost will work on it, that's great, it might give
them a boost. But, I surely would not suggest to anyone
to go out and buy a USB stick just for ReadyBoost. You'd
do yourself good to put that money toward more RAM,
and if you have over 1GB of RAM- I wouldn't even worry
about ReadyBoost. Save that stick for storage.

Take care, John.


-Michael
 
J

John Barnett MVP

Interesting tweak, spooky. I'll have to give it a try when i have time, i
have a 1GB flash drive that also isn't 'supposed' to be compatible.

Although as i've said before my interest is merely to test that readyboost
works; i personally won't be using it because with 1.5GB of RAM on board
there is no performance increase and, as Michael has said, it is actually a
waste of a flash drive.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
G

Guest

I tried switching my USB Flash Drive (LG 2GB) to NTFS just out of curiosity,
as indicated in the link you passed on but once I switched to NTFS Ready
boost would no longer work. I even tried different cluster sizes but each
time I tested the drive it said the drive didn't meet the Ready boost
requirments. I switched back to FAT and Ready boost started working again.
Figure that one out?
 
M

MICHAEL

On smaller drives, FAT is faster.

-Michael

black clouds said:
I tried switching my USB Flash Drive (LG 2GB) to NTFS just out of curiosity,
as indicated in the link you passed on but once I switched to NTFS Ready
boost would no longer work. I even tried different cluster sizes but each
time I tested the drive it said the drive didn't meet the Ready boost
requirments. I switched back to FAT and Ready boost started working again.
Figure that one out?
Click to expand...
 
J

John Sinks

You will notice in the link that after the setup for the tweak was done that
the flash device was re-formatted to FAT32 in step 7 before the device was
used for ReadyBoost. FAT32 is the default file system for ReadyBoost use.
You will also notice that the usb device was 4GB and that the NTFS portion
of the tweak was only to get the USB drive to test as ReadyBoost capable.
Evidently the Verbatim Store n Go USB devices were ReadyBoost capable but
Vista didn't think so.

John
 

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