Windows 7 SP1 x64 and ReadyBoost Flash Drive

DeaconFrost said:

Beta said:

You do not need to change to x86. Windows 7 x64 does not have more overhead it just cashes more memory at boot. You will not see any proformace diffrence in x86 Windows 7.

Not true at all. Windows 7 x64 does have a higher memory footprint, with or without "caching" taken into consideration. It isn't about performance, either. I never said Photoshop would run faster. I said there would be more system memory available to it. Big difference.

I understand, thanks!

Before you get an idea what Ready Boot may do for you, check whether you have any sigbificant paging traffic. Go to Resource Monitor > Memory tab - there is a small graph on the right bottom called "Hard Faults". If you see a lot of activity there, RB may help - provided you have a stick with an access time of around 1ms. That you can check with HD Tune.

whs said:

Before you get an idea what Ready Boot may do for you, check whether you have any significant paging traffic. Go to Resource Monitor > Memory tab - there is a small graph on the right bottom called "Hard Faults". If you see a lot of activity there, RB may help - provided you have a stick with an access time of around 1ms. That you can check with HD Tune.

OK, yes I saw several hard faults, I don't know what constitutes a lot. But I checked the flash drive I have plugged in now (the cheap PNY 8G slider my wife bought because she thought it was cute) and got 32R/20W and an average access time of 0.7 so since this really didn't cost me anything, my wife paid $9.00 for it, it tests faster than many others I tried that are supposed to be faster, and are way more expensive I am just going to keep this one. If there is even a remote possibility that it will assist Windows in any way I will just leave it alone to do it's thing.

Your stick is excellent at 0.7ms access time.

Which number of hard faults is critical and significant in RB terms ?? - that is more difficult to answer. I would say if you have a consistent high number of hard faults (like 100/sec), then RB may have an effect.

Keep tabs on ReadyBoost with Windows 7's Performance Monitor _ Microsoft Windows _ TechRepublic.com
Monitoring ReadyBoost on Windows 7 - Saveen Reddy's blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
ReadyBoost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ReadyBoost - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows
ReadyBoost Performance Test _ Windows Vista and Windows 7 Help
Take a closer look at ReadyBoost features in Windows 7 _ Microsoft Windows _ TechRepublic.com
Windows 7 Readyboost Really Boosts _ Connected Internet

DeaconFrost said:

How much system memory does she have? If it's over 1 GB, then it's been well-proven that you would be seeing the placebo effect and nothing more. Readyboost was designed for systems with less than required system memory, as a way of offering extra memory that was faster than a pagefile.

That isn't actually very true at all - first, it's worth noting that ReadyBoost on systems with less RAM makes it more useful, but it does more than act as a Superfetch / ReadyBoot cache, it can also be used to supplement disk cache (when Windows starts using RAM for disk cache when a disk gets really busy, it will use a ReadyBoost USB key specifically for this). If the hard disk in this machine is relatively slow when under a heavy load of random reads during write or random writes during read, a ReadyBoost key can actually be more than the placebo effect and have a real impact. Just because someone has a lot of RAM doesn't mean using a ReadyBoost key is a placebo. Second, ReadyBoost doesn't get used for RAM at all, it can only be used as a SuperFetch/ReadyBoot cache and disk cache - a ReadyBoost key can't contain anything other than that, meaning it has little effect on RAM (the system will still use approximately the same amount of RAM for a Superfetch cache regardless of whether or not a ReadyBoost key is attached to the system - it'll simply have a *larger* Superfetch cache when one is plugged in).

DeaconFrost said:

cluberti said:

Just because someone has a lot of RAM doesn't mean using a ReadyBoost key is a placebo.

That's actually been proven one two different enthusiast boards. That's why I posted it...because it's considered fact in the enthusiast community, thanks to plenty of testing on the [H]ardForum and Anandtech boards. The golden line has always been 1 GB of system memory. Under that line, you can see a benefit. Over the line, nothing worthwhile. Those folks are all about real world testing and sharing of results.

It adds extra memory storage to offload a lot of the caching, keeping the main system memory more available for actively running apps. That's the point, to offload the cache to something faster and more responsive than a regular HDD. Ideally, you want it in RAM, but if the system offers too little, Readyboost can help.

Deacon,

There is something I do not understand. My understanding of Ready Boost is that it is used as an additionl paging file. The system writes pages that need to be swapped out (page out) to both the pagefile on the HDD and to the stick (the reason it also writes it to the HDD is for safety in case you pull the stick. unexpectedly).

When the page is needed again, it pulls it in from the stick (page in). The performance advantage comes from the much faster access time of a good stick compared to an average HDD (1ms versus 15ms).

You now stipulate that the stick is also used for caching - and I assume you mean independent of any paging activity. This is news to me. I would appreciate if you could post a link of some write-up (preferably by MS) where this mechanism is described. Thank you.