Would you advice me to utilise ReadyBoost or not?

My new Inspiron 6400 should arrive Friday morning, and I'm going to the store today to pick up some accessories. Optical mouse, carry bag, etc. I'm also considering getting a 1/2GB USB stick or flash card for ReadyBoost purposes, if you feel I need it.

Here are my specs: 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 256MB X1400 GPU, 160GB 5400rpm HD.

Now, here are the tasks I will be running: Web-browsing, CD/DVD playback, music/video downloading, instant messaging, word processing, games: Football Manager 2007 and Company of Heroes.

From all that, would you advice me to figure ReadyBoost into my plans or not?

 

You probably wont really need it.

But from what I hear, Ready Boost does help overall system performance and I would suggest it for a snappier Vista system.

this might help:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readyboost

http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx


you can get flash cards much cheaper here

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...10070068+4093&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&SubCategory=68

 

If you have 2+GB of ram, readyboost won't make a difference whatsoever though it can't hurt the system either.

 

It's can't hurt to use ReadyBoost, but like others have said, it may not be of any actual use. It's just another swap file.

Remember that ReadyBoost will wear out whatever media you are using for it. Of course, Microsoft says that it won't ... but think about it, you are constantly doing fast writes.

 

readyboost is great, only personal preference - some (personal) notes:

. any media less than 2gb is really making no difference

. cheap is good

. if u use sd cards (or something similar), just make sure that ur built.in reader can support reading/accessing more than 1gb. some built.in devices limit at 1gb max - usb media is much more tolerant/flexible in size

. wear & tear r part of any mechanical parts of any system, fast-writing media device or hard drive or ram - no difference when being performed under ready.boost or any other apps. I find it a bit funny when users r being concerned about wear&tear on media devices when using ready.boost & totally forgetting about other processes that would "wear&tear" ur gpu, ur ram, ur hdd etc ...

. once a media is being used for ready.boost, u cannot (at least still true by me) access the media for other file management (storing etc ...)

cheers ...

 

If you decide to stop using ReadyBoost, can you still use your storage device for whatever it was originally intended for? I assume you just have to reformat it?

I want to buy a SD card and use it with my built-in card reader for ReadyBoost - is that practical, or would the card degrade too quickly?

 

If you have a built in card reader for your laptop, there's no reason not to pop in a spare SD card for ReadyBoost.

 

Once you stop using it for ReadyBoost, you can use it for anything else. You would have to format it and then it's like it's brand new, but used.

It would probably degrade faster than a card being used just for regular file access, but these things are usually built to last for a loooong time anyway. I wouldn't worry to much.

 

Sweet. Anyone know if newegg ships to Canada?

 

No they don't, I've tried it. You're best bet would be ncix.com or tigerdirect.ca.