Ready Boost? Please help me :D

Ok guys I recently found a cool thing (maybe). Ready boost
Basically what i got out of it is that if you plug in a flash drive and use ready boost on it then its basically RAM
Please give me some more info on it. I have read on Microsoft/wikipedia and was wondering if it is really good or would it slow down your computer if you had to much of it?

 

I stuck a 4GB memory stick in my flash drive and use readyboost on my M17, for no other reason then the memory slot would be sitting there empty 99.9% of the time anyway, so I felt it couldn't hurt. Haven't noticed any difference with or without it.

 

Ready boost was a kludge to enable older systems to run the grotesque bloatware that is Vista. In a properly configured system with sufficient ram, it offers no benefit. For a low ram unit, it works as a kind of swap.

seer

 

Ok that is what i thought

 

Readyboost was big with Vista, and with Windows 7 it's not as necessary, not that it was with Vista either...

If you have 3GB memory or more in your system, there is absolutely no need to even think about Readyboost, period.

If you have 2GB Memory, ready boost still isn't necessary, just clean up your memory and processes and don't run freaking 20 thousand programs at once. Keep in mind USB transfers are ridiculously slow in comparison to RAM, so what are you really gaining? Especially if you are a gamer...

1GB, sure you can score some more memory, but do yourself a favor and upgrade, soon.

 

Dont worry i have the same computer has you, m11xr2 but i just wondered if it was beneficial at all

 

This is simply not true, especially if you have a 5400RPM hard drive or slower. I wish people would get off of Vista's implementation of readyboost and quit associating it with Win7 implementation:

Understand ReadyBoost and whether it will Speed Up your System

You know the Seagate Momentus XT? Ever heard of it (insert sarcasm)? It basically took readyboost to the next level. I don't see anyone recommending people NOT get a hybrid drive if they have alot of RAM.

I don't see what the big deal is. Pop that sucker in and try it. It's not going to blow up your laptop. You've got nothing to lose by trying it. If you don't see a difference either seat of the pants or via benchmark, pop it out. It's that simple. I do suggest you leave it in there for at least a few days to see if it makes a difference.

I always used the built-in SD reader for my Readyboost and used Class 6 or faster, but the damn cards stick too far out on the M11x. It's still unclear how Readyboost with an XT would perform.

 

I wonder... would using a mPCIe (one on ebay for 20usd) SD card reader work?

I was thinking about it when I was considering a small SSD.

 

I have one of these in my r1

MR04 SD Card Reader for Mini PCI Express ( up to 64GB ) - eBay, Memory Card Readers, Computer Accessories, Computers Networking. (end time 08-Nov-10 12:55:22 AEDST)

works perfectly. I use it simply as additional storage (music, pictures etc.) with the benefit of being easily removable, my main drive is an SSD, so that 16/32 extra GB can be quite handy.

Although if I still had a mechanical drive I would definately use it as ready boost.... for $10 for the adaptor and ~$15 for a 4gb SD completely contained within the laptop, retaining stock look and feel why would you not??

 

I don't think he means using the hard drive but is referring to the fact that Windows 7 does with ram what Ready Boost does with flash memory. It's called SuperFetch. With ram being faster than flash memory, Superfetch is better than Ready Boost, as long as one has enough ram to use it well, which is why he said "for people with 3gb of ram or more"

 

If you look at the technet article I linked it states that readyboost uses superfetch. One is not a replacement for the other.............they compliment each other. Also note:

"ReadyBoost provides the most significant performance improvement under the following circumstances:

The computer has a slow hard disk drive. Computers with a primary hard disk Windows Experience Index (WEI) subscore lower than 4.0 will see the most significant improvements.
The flash storage provides fast, random, non-sequential reads. Sequential read speed is less important.
The flash storage is connected by a fast bus. Typically, USB memory card readers are not sufficiently fast. However, connecting flash memory to an internal memory card reader might provide sufficient performance."

Notice that NOWHERE in this article does it mention readyboost and the amount of RAM you have.

 

ReadyBoost is not a caching mechanism to improve application load times, like Superfetch or the 4GB NAND memory on a Seagate Momentus XT drive. ReadyBoost has always been a method to improve the performance of the swap file in the event that Windows needs to use it. The idea is that a fast USB 2.0 flash drive can have faster i/o throughput than a slow mechanical hard drive.

Just because that one article you linked to doesn't mention "memory" or "RAM", doesn't mean that ReadyBoost is unrelated to system RAM usage. They are absolutely related. Windows will go from system RAM --> ReadyBoost drive --> hard disk drive, whenever it runs out of physical system RAM to use.

ReadyBoost - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows

"ReadyBoost is designed to help when your PC's memory is running low. Low memory can make your computer sluggish because Windows, which needs a place to stash data, turns to the hard drive. Flash memory offers a speedier alternative."​

ReadyBoost - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows

 

Marketing meet Engineering. I for one tend to believe the technical explanation than the marketing one.

In my company, the friggin Sales/Marketing guys/gals are always behind the curve and getting the developers in hot water because of outdated/inaccurate information.

 

You say that, but it's clear you don't understand the technical explanation . I was wrong to call it the Super Fetch of flash, and you were right in your response to my post, but Kent clarified it well.

Ready Boost is a Windows feature that allows one to use a flash device as an additional paging file. A paging file is used when not enough ram is available. Thus, if one has enough ram, since ram is faster than flash, there is no benefit gained from Ready Boost.

The only time you will see a benefit from Ready Boost when there is enough ram is if one has a paging file in use on the hard drive, despite having enough ram. That is because Windows uses a paging file before running out of ram, which is why anyone with a large amount of ram should disable it. The mistake here is using a paging file at all, and Ready Boost is not the solution. The solution is to disable to paging file. That is why djjosherie was right to say people with 3gb+ of ram most likely won't benefit from it.

The only time to use Ready Boost is when one does not have enough ram to satisfy one's computer use. In that case, the paging file is necessary, and, as you said, flash is faster than a mechanical hard drive, so the user will benefit from using a flash drive for the paging file via Ready Boost.

 

PLEASE READ THE TECHNET ARTICLE (you didn't read it did you?). If you're correct then hybrid drives like the Seagate Momentus XT shouldn't have any performance benefits as your exisiting RAM should be able to perform much better than what the hybrid drive can offer.

Readyboost in Vista was a crutch for insufficient RAM. Readyboost in Win7 can be a crutch for insufficient RAM, but it can also be a SUPPLEMENT for hard drive performance.

Disabling pagefile.........oh boy

 

The reason the XT has a benefit is because it has its own algorithm of what to store in its flash file that's much more aggressive than Super Fetch.

If the XT used Super Fetch in deciding what to store in its flash memory, then the comparison would be valid, but it doesn't . Put another way, there are more variables in the comparison than you're accounting for.

Just think about it. If adding a 4gb flash stick was the same as replacing one's hard drive with a Momentus XT, then who would pay the $130-$60=$70 dollar premium for an XT over any other 7200 rpm hard drive instead of dropping $10 for a 4gb flash drive?

Edit: and for verification of my previous post, a quick search turned up Greg Ross with the same answer (that it does not help people with 4gb of ram or more: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...74640-4gb-ram-physical-limits-readyboost.html)

 

Since you ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO READ THE ARTICLE here's the meat:

"Windows 7 use the Windows SuperFetch algorithm to determine which files should be stored in the cache. SuperFetch monitors files that users access (including system files, application files, and documents) and pre¬loads those files into the ReadyBoost cache. All files in the cache are encrypted using 128-bit AES if the flash storage device is removable, but hardware manufacturers can choose to disable encryption on internal, non-removable ReadyBoost devices. Because the ReadyBoost cache stores a copy of the files, the flash drive can be removed at any point without affecting the computer—Windows will simply read the original files from the disk.

ReadyBoost provides the most significant performance improvement under the following circumstances:

The computer has a slow hard disk drive. Computers with a primary hard disk Windows Experience Index (WEI) subscore lower than 4.0 will see the most significant improvements.
The flash storage provides fast, random, non-sequential reads. Sequential read speed is less important.
The flash storage is connected by a fast bus. Typically, USB memory card readers are not sufficiently fast. However, connecting flash memory to an internal memory card reader might provide sufficient performance.

Computers with fast hard disks (such as 7,200- or 10,000-RPM disks) might realize minimal performance gains because of the already high disk I/O. ReadyBoost will read files from the cache only when doing so will improve performance. Hard disks outperform flash drives during sequential reads, but flash drives are faster during non-sequential reads (because of the latency caused when the drive head must move to a different disk sector).Therefore, ReadyBoost reads from the cache only for non-sequential reads. "

Cost of a 4 gig SLC flash drive:

Newegg.com - Transcend 4GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model TS4GCF300

Problem with many people trying to implement readyboost, is that they're trying to use a USB flash drive that they got out of a Cracker Jack box. Back in the Vista days, USB flash media was horribly slower than what you can get today............SSD anyone?