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    Readyboost any good these days

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by theneighborrkid, Jan 20, 2009.

  1. theneighborrkid

    theneighborrkid Notebook Evangelist

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    Running Vista 64 bit SP1 on gateway 7811-FX and was wondering how much improvement I would get from a 4gb sd card (highest class) thanks
     
    theneighborrkid, Jan 20, 2009
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  2. X2P

    X2P COOLING | NBR Super Mod

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    ReadyBoost has been a joke since the beginning and will continue to be a joke unless you are running vista with 512mb of ram or less.
     
    X2P, Jan 20, 2009
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  3. DetlevCM

    DetlevCM Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Not quite - readyboost also works outside the "obvious" part.

    Keep it running - I switched it off, then on, my startup time dropped.
     
    DetlevCM, Jan 20, 2009
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  4. Need For Steve

    Need For Steve Notebook Guru

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    yea, Readyboost helps backup and preload programs needed for startup, to reduce boot times...cut it off, and each time you boot, windows has to find all the files and programs to start from scratch
     
    Need For Steve, Jan 21, 2009
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  5. Qwakrz

    Qwakrz Notebook Consultant

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    Readyboost is good at doing some things.

    There was a lot of misinformation posted on forums and the net about "It only caches the swap file" which is utter rubbish. It actually caches small file writes to the HDD as well as pre-loading small files or small parts of large files that the drivers notice get used a lot by your applications. This caching is done because reading small files off the HDD is very slow compared to reading them off a flash card, HDD's are very quick at reading contiguous files though so large blocks of files are left on the HDD.

    I run Readyboost with 4GB of ram, I don't notice much difference with it until I start using email and other programs that sort lots of small files. My mail server however has 4GB of ram and a Readyboost drive and the stats for that frequently show 100x more data read from the flash card than is written and the HDD thrashing that usually goes along with people collecting their email or the server getting it from my host mail store has stopped.

    Don't disable the Readyboost service in Vista as it runs a few other needed services to help speed up the start of Vista.

    The only way to see if it will help your situation is to try it. If you have an SD slot on the laptop then you could try using an SD card in it to provide the boost or a USB stick. I prefer SD though as it is then held inside the laptop with no chance of snapping it off inadvertently.
     
    Qwakrz, Jan 21, 2009
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  6. DetlevCM

    DetlevCM Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I think you don't notice a difference unless you work say a month without it and then switch it on.
    My startup time dropped by about one minute.
     
    DetlevCM, Jan 21, 2009
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