SuperFetch

[Guest]

My understanding is that with SuperFetch, I can load much of the new Vista OS
into flash memory and thus accelerate the boot up process. Is this correct?
It there a point where flash memory becomes excessive? Would a 4 GB Compact
flash be useful or is that excessive?

 

[Robert Moir]

My understanding is that with SuperFetch, I can load much of the new
Vista OS into flash memory and thus accelerate the boot up process.
Is this correct?

Not in the slightest little bit, sorry.

Superfetch is simply a fancy name for caching.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/superfetch.mspx

You may also be thinking of ReadyBoost, which is another often misunderstood
feature. ReadyBoost allows you to put all or some of your virtual memory
onto a flash drive, which generally allows the virtual memory swap file to
work faster than it can from hard disk.

It there a point where flash memory becomes
excessive? Would a 4 GB Compact flash be useful or is that excessive?

As ever with a lot of these things it depends on your exact circumstances.
There's a sweet spot based on how much work you do and how much RAM you
have, as this has an impact on how heavily your virtual memory swap file
would be used.

Sorry, that probably wasn't the simple answer you hoped for!

 

[Victek]

My understanding is that with SuperFetch, I can load much of the new Vista
OS
into flash memory and thus accelerate the boot up process. Is this
correct?
It there a point where flash memory becomes excessive? Would a 4 GB
Compact
flash be useful or is that excessive?

As was mentioned SuperFetch and ReadyBoost are different things and it
sounds like you're actually asking about ReadyBoost. One way you could
determine the size of a flash drive for "ReadyBoost" is see how much virtual
memory is being used in the Vista task manager. You didn't mention how much
ram your system has. Generally speaking more ram means less paging, so a
smaller flash drive would be sufficient. I have 2gb of system memory and a
1gb flash drive fully dedicated to ReadyBoost. As I currently use my system
I don't think a larger flash drive would improve performance. Hope this
helps.

 

[Donald McDaniel]

My understanding is that with SuperFetch, I can load much of the new Vista
OS
into flash memory and thus accelerate the boot up process. Is this
correct?
It there a point where flash memory becomes excessive? Would a 4 GB
Compact
flash be useful or is that excessive?

My own personal experience is that 4GB is not excessive, and is truly
helpful.
I purchased a SanDisk Cruzer 4GB. Setting it up was simple. All I had to
do was plug it into an available USB 2 slot, and Vista installed it
immediately. The OS told me that the entire size (4GB) was the optimum size
for the cache. However, I gave it only half of the Cruzer. That is a good
trade-off for me: I get the advantages of ReadyBoost, and space for 2GB of
my files. I use it as a "floppy" to move files quickly between rooms.