Community Newsletter: Q&A: What is Windows ReadyBoost and does it improve performance?
- 6/27/08 4:33 PM
Hype Hipe Hipe again
by Hank Wells - 5/24/08 1:55 AM In reply to: What is Windows ReadyBoost and does it improve performance? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It makes very little differance unless you have lees than 1GB of RAM. Also USB Flash Drives do have limited life span so constant use which it would be whenever its switched on and the USB is pluged in.
With the low cost of RAM at the present time it would not only be faster and cheaper but it is also not effected by the amount of Reads/Writes before it dies.
Jannerhank
ReadyBoost - the good, the bad, and the ugly...
by Wolfie2k5 - 5/24/08 1:57 AM In reply to: What is Windows ReadyBoost and does it improve performance? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Readyboost is, IMO, something that will only yield a marginal gain in performance. Yes, it does boost performance, but overall, it won't be something that you will notice outright. It won't make your laptop twice as fast as it was. If anything the gains would be fairly limited to maybe a 10% boost.
That said, you WILL need to do some research on the drive you're planning on buying. Not ALL flash drives are built the same. Most of your older drives just won't cut it. Many of the newer ones out now that are cheap probably won't cut it either.
Sony (Yeah. yeah. I know... boo!! hiss!!!) for all evil stuff they've done in the recent past does make a fairly good flash drive that IS ReadyBoost compatible and works fairly well. The drive itself is fairly tiny and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb - so it can be left in the USB port without fear of having it getting damaged.
Look for the MicroVault Tiny line.
There are things, however, that you might want to look at doing before going out and buying a ReadyBoost drive. That would include:
1.) Removing the junk and crapware from your PC. Most laptops these days are plagued with tons of trial-ware, junk and other useless promotional apps that do little, except suck up resources and bog down performance. Ed Bott on C-Net's sister site, ZDNet did an article on this recently and the difference is night and day.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=429
Mind you, his ultimate solution was to format the hard drive and install a clean copy of the operating system. While it's probably the best possible solution, you should get a decent amount of gain by just removing the offending junk.
2.) Defrag your hard drive. Simple, obvious... 'Nuff said.
3.) Configure apps to only run when you need them. As an example or two, why WinZip and Acrobat Reader need a stub application running in the background all the time is beyond me. Disable Google's Updater service if at all possible. There's just NO need for it running all the time. Look in the system tray and see what programs are running there and do whatever you can to eliminate things from starting up except for those things that are absoloutely necessary. The less crap you've got running, the faster the machine will be.
Keep in mind, most laptops aren't designed to be barn burners. They're designed for a balance between performance and battery life.
Readyboost
by ibuchan1 - 6/21/08 2:15 AM In reply to: ReadyBoost - the good, the bad, and the ugly... by Wolfie2k5Well I plugged in a 1Gb flashdrive to a 1Gb RAM laptop and got a dramatic change in performance! It went from crippled to limping in 1 bound!
ReadyBoost - the good, the bad, and the ugly...
by jamesbutton - 6/21/08 10:40 AM In reply to: ReadyBoost - the good, the bad, and the ugly... by Wolfie2k5Readyboost effectively functions as an extra (memory) cache for files that Windows Vista notices you using.
Flash drives have a limited life number of erase and writes.
Flash drives connected via USB run faster than getting data from a hard drive surface, but more slowly than main memory.
Rather than letting Windows wear out the flash memory, why not put your applications on the USB drive (A single writing session) , and run the applications from that drive.
That way Windows carries on using the hard drive for itself, and the occasional data file, while the application being loaded from the USB drive means there is no need for Windows to pause it's own use of the hard drive in order to read the application programs from the hard drive, and Windows does not then need to reduce the life of the USB memory stick by writing those files to it.. They are already there!
AND.. That works under XP and Me, 98 and 2K as well as it works under Vista
The same coments apply to eBooster
by baddawgg - 6/22/08 8:15 PM In reply to: ReadyBoost - the good, the bad, and the ugly... by jamesbuttonThe same comments apply to eBooster, a ReadyBoost equivelent that runs under XP.
Wear it out?
by WAArnold - 6/23/08 6:53 AM In reply to: ReadyBoost - the good, the bad, and the ugly... by jamesbutton"Rather than letting Windows wear out the flash memory, why not put your applications on the USB drive (A single writing session) , and run the applications from that drive."
I personally do not see what the deal is. Given estimated 10 year to wear it out, it will be obsolete long before that time and you will go and purchase a larger capacity long before it's worn out. As for the speed someone mentioned, that usb drive I do not believe will load a file faster than your hard drive. 480K versus my SATA 3.0g
I don't believe so.
Maybe someone with all the brain power can explain
Readyboost / pagefiles / facts
by Keatonz - 6/25/08 5:40 AM In reply to: Wear it out? by WAArnoldWe know:
The Readyboost feature uses memory from the USB Flash Drive to supplement the computers RAM.
USB has the capacity to run at 480 mb/per sec if only 1 device is connected (usb speed is shared between each device).
Sata drives can run at speeds of 300mb/per sec.
IDE drives can run at speeds of maximum 133 mb/per sec with UDMA 6.
System RAM can run at speeds from 6.4 gb/per sec to 15 gb/per sec at the top end.
Any USB flash drive that you buy will NOT be able to run at the maximum speed offered by the USB. Instead it will run at the speed indicated by the flash drives manufacturer. Some are faster then others.
Variables:
The speed and size of the flash drive.
The speed and size of your current RAM.
The speed and size of your current hard drive.
Theory:
Since RAM these days runs at considerably faster speeds then our hard drives and flash drives the best option would to buy more RAM if you are lacking.
If you cant buy more ram and are still lacking, then buy a flash drive that says its readyboost compatible. It will use your flash drives memory the same way as it does for RAM but it will run slower then if real RAM was storing that information.
I have found a more convenient way of using my flash drive.
I have enough RAM to suite all my needs but i use only one hard drive.
I assign my page file to use only my flash drives memory and therefore free's up a lot of read and write time for my only hard drive, which runs the operating system. A more effective way of doing this would be if you had multiple hard drives to set the pagefile onto a drive that doesnt store much information that you actively use.
Also remember that most hard drives have multiple platters inside of them which make up your memory. Each platter has its own read and write heads therefore being able to act independantly of the other platters. Most acer laptops use this fact to their advantage by creating a separate partition for each platter on the hard drive.
By doing this you are able to set your pagefile to a platter on your drive that can read and write at the same time as any other platter reading or writing applications data.
Thanks Keatonz!
by JCitizen - 6/25/08 9:21 AM In reply to: Readyboost / pagefiles / facts by KeatonzOne of the most intelligent, informed responses here yet!
Most intelligent response yet
by WAArnold - 6/25/08 12:50 PM In reply to: Thanks Keatonz! by JCitizenAmen Mate
Wow 3G huh?
by jty12388 - 6/25/08 5:40 AM In reply to: Wear it out? by WAArnold"The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device." Quoted from http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx about flash drives
"SATA 3Gb/s
3000MHz embedded clock
x 1 bit per clock
x 80% for 8b10b encoding
/ 8 bits per byte
= 300 Mbytes/sec" Compliments of http://www.serialata.org/3g.asp
350 is a bigger number than 300...so yeah I would say it is faster. I love when other people do the work for me and all I have to do is find it before making an ignorant comment.
...
by jty12388 - 6/25/08 5:54 AM In reply to: Wow 3G huh? by jty12388Obviously I have my own issues- The point I was trying to make is that the 3G is faster and I was happy that I did not argue before looking up the facts.
readyboost trial and error.
by werdonmorris - 6/21/08 6:50 PM In reply to: ReadyBoost - the good, the bad, and the ugly... by Wolfie2k5i have personally used ready boost, with a 2 gig usb, and there is a very slight difference. but not enough to really go off the deep end for it, even at the cheap price of $ 24.00 price tag of the chip.
one down side i found, was that if you do get a nasty virus, and you think you beat it, such as the blue screen of death. it will hide within the usb readyboost chip, lay waiting ti strike again. and once it's in there, the only way to remove it, is to lay it on the floor, and do a tap dance upon it.
truly, the best way to get more speed, and better control of the cpu, is to simply have enough memory, and proper processor right from the get go. but remember to the average user, more speed, faster goof's!
werdonmorris@yahoo.com. have a blessed day.
laptops and slow vista
by bill moorejr - 5/24/08 7:39 AM In reply to: What is Windows ReadyBoost and does it improve performance? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I did exactaly the same thing. My shiny new toshiba satelite was a great deal but maxed out loading the programns. The solution was shopping the net for a pair of 2mg ram cards which were easy to install and instantly put the new zip back in the machine.
Slow Vista solution -- installed XP
by albienose - 6/20/08 8:17 PM In reply to: laptops and slow vista by bill moorejrGot a Toshiba Satellite as gift, and hated the Vista, so my local tech shop installed an up to date XP and I'm flying!
Vista
by teapot44 - 6/20/08 9:20 PM In reply to: laptops and slow vista by bill moorejrI am sorry ,,but anyone that is useing windows Vista,,
go back to windows 2000,, or XP,
I hate Vista,, it is slow, it is fustrating to use. I hate it.
Going back to windows 2000.. sorry for anyone useing it.
There is to many bugs for it,, or go with a MACK.. way better.
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