ready boost in vista

calex71

Any one tried this with a usb key?
tried with 3 but they failed the test.
Dont meet the required specs i'd say.

Be interested to see how much of a differnce it makes
to performace, could be useful on a laptop.

Or anyone know of some cheap usb keys that work and are freely available?

Edit:wonder how long B4 they start slapping "ready boost certified" stickers on them and jack up the price by €20 lol

Richard Dower

I use the Patriot Xporter XT 2GB, passes Vista Readyboost. 30.6MB/s average read with 31 MB/s burst.

I got it from www.memory-configurator.com
The 4GB version also works, i alsoused a 256MB Memorex Traveldrive, it gets 18-19MB/s...but the Patriot drive is one of the fastest on the market.

As for speed, it all depends on how much RAM you have, 2GB or more won't see much difference. Readyboost is limited to 4GB and you can only use one USB key.

8T8

Readyboost makes the most difference on systems will 512MB of RAM and has diminishing returns as you add more RAM to the system 1-2GB.

It still helps a little bit on systems with lots of RAM but not as much as on lower end systems with only 512MB. Ideally the drive should be equal to or greater than the amount of RAM in the system

The Crucial Gizmo drives are mostly compatible I have a 2GB one that works, ExtremeTech have a link with a few drives they tested.

Peteee

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/08/analysis_vista_ready_boost/page2.html

This is a good test of it.

Basically it works, but you'll notice it less and less with the more ram you have.

Still a nice technology, that wont cost anybody much (Most people have a spare flash drive laying about)

brav

calex71 wrote:

Edit:wonder how long B4 they start slapping "ready boost certified" stickers on them and jack up the price by €20 lol

Ya I saw Komplett with a few of them already but the prices don't seem to be much higher, €25 for a 1gb Corsair certified

8T8

You can also use other media as well like SD Cards which is handy if you have an unused port like on a laptop.

Extremetech again did some testing and all the SDCards listed are ReadyBoost compatible.

There was another site as well cant find the link at the moment (will try to dig it up) that did some testing and found that obviously not all USB drives are equal & some fair better with ReadyBoost than others.

Capt'n Midnight

And SD cards don't stick out waiting to get broken.

Does anyone know if you can use CF in a pcmcia adaptor ?

8T8

Compact flash is supported but I have not seen anyone who has tested with compact flash (yet).

If the device meets the requirements it should work;
* 2.5 MB/sec throughout for 4 KB random reads
* 1.75 MB/sec throughout for 512 KB random writes

I found a list of confirmed working readyboost devices & there are some Transcend compact flash devices on the list. This article goes into a little more detail on the workings of Readyboost and testing devices with it.

dave oc

Is it better to get a card with more memory or better access read/write speeds?

Im using a laptop with 1gig ram and was looking at this
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=101181

It seems really fast but would it be better to get this because it has more memory?
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=100515

8T8

That is a tricky one to call but I would probably go with the faster one as to run ReadyBoost efficiently all you need basically is the same or greater than the amount of RAM in the system so the faster 1GB SDCard should help a little bit more.

DemonOfTheFall

Can't go too far wrong with the Corsair 2 Gig keys on komplett for 30 euro... They're a bit big but they're sturdy fast and cheap.