Windows ReadyBoost does it actually work?

[nailgunner]

yeah and this is what i get

Then based on either your system specs or the flash drive, windows has determined ReadyBoost is useless to you. As an example, I believe if you use a SSD you will get that message.

 

[e1d8]

Yeah I'm at my max right now for ram. 8 gig of DDR3, the Tecra only supports up to 8 with its current configuration.

Now if my understanding of ReadyBoost is Correct then you should be able to use your 1TB HDD for a ReadyBoost system. The largest I ever tried was 250GB because as we all know, for Windows 7, 256GB(250 when compressed to RB) is the largest we can go.

However, if you use a 1TB or anything larger than the 256GB requirement here's what I believe will happen...

A) You'll have to completely format that 1TB HDD in the ReadyBoost section of the disk properties
B) If it goes that far, ReadyBoost will automatically shut down any access to the rest of that TB HDD
C) The rules with ReadyBoost is that you cannot utilize the remaining space on the drive you are using while it is being used as RB.
ex. If you plug a 32GB thumb drive into your computer and choose to only use 16GB of it, you'll have to format and OK it; once it is in use, you can not use that thumb drive to store data on even though you're only using half of if for RB because it simply won't allow that.
D) So with that said, if ReadyBoost even allows you to use a 1TB HDD (only using 256GB of it) then you'd be basically wasting the rest of that drive because you wouldn't be able to read or write data from it. (again if my understanding of how it works is accurate)

Hope that helps!

p.s. I'm due for another external soon, I'm already using over 4TB worth currently... but before I use(no matter what the size is) I'll format it and try ReadyBoost on and and see what results I can get from it.

 

[nailgunner]

Yeah I'm at my max right now for ram. 8 gig of DDR3, the Tecra only supports up to 8 with its current configuration.

Now if my understanding of ReadyBoost is Correct then you should be able to use your 1TB HDD for a ReadyBoost system. The largest I ever tried was 250GB because as we all know, for Windows 7, 256GB(250 when compressed to RB) is the largest we can go.

However, if you use a 1TB or anything larger than the 256GB requirement here's what I believe will happen...

A) You'll have to completely format that 1TB HDD in the ReadyBoost section of the disk properties
B) If it goes that far, ReadyBoost will automatically shut down any access to the rest of that TB HDD
C) The rules with ReadyBoost is that you cannot utilize the remaining space on the drive you are using while it is being used as RB.
ex. If you plug a 32GB thumb drive into your computer and choose to only use 16GB of it, you'll have to format and OK it; once it is in use, you can not use that thumb drive to store data on even though you're only using half of if for RB because it simply won't allow that.
D) So with that said, if ReadyBoost even allows you to use a 1TB HDD (only using 256GB of it) then you'd be basically wasting the rest of that drive because you wouldn't be able to read or write data from it. (again if my understanding of how it works is accurate)

Hope that helps!

p.s. I'm due for another external soon, I'm already using over 4TB worth currently... but before I use(no matter what the size is) I'll format it and try ReadyBoost on and and see what results I can get from it.

I'm just a semi-novice playing with the ReadyBoost, but I'm not sure that's totally correct. I have 1/2 of a 16gb drive allocated to ReadyBoost, and I'm able to use the other half at will, and have. I don't have it compressed, so I don't know if that is the difference or not. When I click on the ReadyBoost tab, it has a sliding scale of how much I want to use as long as I don't dedicate the whole drive to RB.

 

[e1d8]

Two interesting points I came across when further researching ReadyBoost.

"Because ReadyBoost stores its cache as a file rather than directly using the flash device in a raw manner, that file system must be mounted and assigned a drive letter. Simply mounting as a subfolder of another drive won't suffice, as only the root folder of a drive is suited for ReadyBoost cache — otherwise the “ReadyBoost” tab will not appear in the logical volume properties, nor will any previously created cache file be used."

Keep tabs on ReadyBoost with Windows 7's Performance Monitor | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

Go to that site and follow step-by-step instructions. It will let you view what ReadyBoost is doing, and if you wish, to create a data collection to be looked at and better understand what ReadyBoost does and when!


"On laptop computers the performance shifts more in favor of flash memory, laptop memory being priced higher than that for desktop systems, and with many laptops using relatively slow 4200 RPM and 5400 RPM hard drives. Additionally, on a laptop, ReadyBoost caching can reduce hard drive access, allowing the hard drive to spin down for increased battery life.[10] Also, because of the nature of the power management typically enabled during mobile use of a laptop it is a more power efficient way of increasing equipment productivity."

 

[jagooch]

Have you considered increasing your physical RAM, perhaps doubling it?

Thanks for the testimonial. First good report on ReadyBoost I've seen, and from someone who actually relies upon it.

My Netbook is already maxed out on RAM (2Gb)

 

[Matlot]

Perhaps a more real world scenario would help.

My laptop is maxed out at 4GB RAM and, thanks to Dell's slight of hand and 32 bit Northbridge chip, only able to access 3.25GB of that. (Precision M65 - their top of the line laptop 3 years ago!)

I develop software and a typical set of open applications on my machine would be:

* Two instances of Visual Studio
* SQL Server management Studio
* A web browser or two with at least half a dozen open pages
* Several explorer windows
* IIS serving up local copies of web services
* Streaming audio

Needless to say this fills up the ram in no time and compiling large projects can take many minutes.

For a while I've used a 1GB USB stick for ReadyBoost and thought I noticed a slight improvement. Today I picked up a cheap 4GB USB stick to replace the 1GB one. I now notice a real improvement in the compilation times and general responsiveness of the machine. I'd much rather be able to stick another 4GB of system memory in the machine but, as I said, that's not possible.

At some point I'll get a new laptop, but at around £1200 for the sort of machine I need that can wait a bit!

I've just got a USB 3.0 card for the machine and an toying with putting a swap file onto a drive connected to it.

BTW: if you're interested, USB 2 memory sticks perform about 30% faster on random reads through a USB 3.0 port!

 

[GeneO]

natostanco -

if your device is formatted to a block size greater than 4096 bytes, it can;t be used by readyboost (I got this error wit ha 16k block size, reformatted to 4K, then it worked). With such a large drive I expect maybe you formatted it with a larger block size?

btw after installing readyboost device I started getting BSODs - even after deactivating the readyboost drive. It is almost impossible to uninstall - it adds a readyboost filter in all disk hardware and there is no "uninstall". I ended up using system restore to correct.

Gene

 

[linnemeyerhere]

As mentioned ready boost works when it can improve speeds, my 8gb sd was helping out a little in my system till I noticed it wasn't adding anything one day. Well I had added my SSD and ready boost no longer could add a performance gain to my new system disk.

 

[Nemix]

I have a doubt about readybost.
RAM speed....8000 MB/s aprox
HDD speed....80 MB/s aprox
Pendrive....... 2 - 20 MB/s (being 20 the fastest top of the line pendrives)

USB 3.0 Pendrive.....35-70 MB/s

That's with average early stage USB 3.0 pendrives, top of the line ones made for speed are just going to get faster as the technology improves.

USB 2.0 = 480 Mbit/s (~57 MB/s)
USB 3.0 = 4800 Mbit/s (~572 MB/s)

 

[gregrocker]

Don't waste your money on a speedy flash stick - invest it in a RAM upgrade or SSD which will actually improve performance.

RAM is cheap, SSD becoming more so.

 

[Nemix]

Agreed on SSD to improve performance but prices are still high and I like all my installation files on one partition in the C:\ drive so a 500GB SSD is not an option for me and many others.

On ram, I disagree. Ram can only and will only speed up your system of you actually make use of it. My system idles at 1GB out my 4GB and I never go over 2.5GB regardless of what I doing, bare in mind I do not use intensive Photo and Video editing software. So having 4/6/8/12GB of ram does nothing for me and for most users out there ATM, IMO.

This is where ReadyBoost kicks in, if you do not already own a SSD or 10, 000 RPM hard drive then ReadyBoost will help. ReadyBoost does little to improve on program loading and Windows startup times on system already equipped with 4GB or more ram. However, I noticed significant boosts when loading Photos/Videos and thumbnails of Photo/Video files even with 4GB of ram.

USB flash drives are cheap and you can always make other uses for them if you decide not to use it for ReadyBoost. But if you buy 8GB ram and never go over 4GB or buy a 128GB SSD for 4x the price of a 500GB hard drive knowing that you'll use 500GB then that's what I call wasting money.

 

[bala2289]

i have X32 bit windows with 2gb ddr3 ram and i used a transcend 4gd usb as readyboost but i dont see any improvements.. is it necessary to use ready boost.. well i dont use my usb often so i dedicated it to readyboost..

 

[zigzag3143]

i have X32 bit windows with 2gb ddr3 ram and i used a transcend 4gd usb as readyboost but i dont see any improvements.. is it necessary to use ready boost.. well i dont use my usb often so i dedicated it to readyboost..

I wouldnt. Ready boost is marginal at best and can cause BSOD's. Invest in Ram.

 

[Weaselwarrior]

I find It works well

I have a crappy low end system I purchased hoping to upgrade it.
Once I got it home, however, I was saddened to find it was basically un-upgradeable in many aspects. It originally came with 2gig RAM and a 250gig HDD, no extra power ports and a RAM cap of 4 gig. on a 64 bit system this sucked..

Originally the computer was lightning fast, but as soon as I started playing my favorite xp games (Command and Conquer) things went south, major random lag problems when running anything in compatibility mode.. I installed the cap of 4gig RAM. and my xp games worked ok, just ok.

The other night, I plugged in an old 16 gig flash and dedicated 4gig to ready boost.
It frees up the little tidily processes so my applications dont lag anymore. I find this helps greatly with speeding up how the system works in compatibility mode programs.

All in all. When 4gig of ram is all you're allowed, and you have 3tb of drives, ready boost is a positive thing. I'm actually going to go out and buy a fast ready boost built drive.

I'm no expert, but thats my $0.02

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Weaselwarrior,
You make a good point. With many systems the addition of a readyboost drive can speed things up. I used readyboost up till the recent addition of a SSD drive. In my case the use of the RB device added very little added speed but I can imagine in many systems it would prove valuable.

 

[pestul]

Quick Readyboost review on my end. I have an ASUS eeePC 1008HA (1GB ram, Windows 7 Starter). I put a 2GB 133x (Class 6 SDHC) card in and dedicated it to Readyboost. I just wanted to give it a try instead of ripping the thing apart to put a 2GB memory module upgrade.

At first I didn't think it had done anything.. but I guess it takes time to load all the prefetch and data and commonly used programs. The difference on this netbook is like night and day now. Everything is zippy. Boot time is probably 25-50% faster (subjectively as I didn't measure it). It definitely had a large impact on this machine. Of course it will never fully substitute a ram upgrade, but it was quite helpful. It may also help that I'm using one of the older SD cards that were manufactured with SLC and having faster write performance.

 

[mickey megabyte]

yeah, sd cards are perfect for readyboost - cheap, easy to install-and-forget, without bits poking out of the machine.



as you say, doesn't compare to 'proper' ram, but it's certainly a useful upgrade!

 

[noobvious]

yeah, sd cards are perfect for readyboost - cheap, easy to install-and-forget, without bits poking out of the machine.



as you say, doesn't compare to 'proper' ram, but it's certainly a useful upgrade!

That's what I'm hoping. My new netbook has Home Premium installed with 1GB RAM, and I picked up a Class 10 4GB SDHC card for $7.00. I just stuck it in and set it up, so it will be interesting to see over the next few days how much it helps.

Am I correct in assuming that I do not want to assign my page file to the card, and I should leave all the virtual memory stuff alone?

 

[cluberti]

if your system is performing well and you have enough RAM for the load, your paging file should be hit very infrequently. However, if you do move the paging file, even Microsoft recommends placing the paging file on an SSD (or similar) device, for what it's worth. Again, a properly scaled system should use the paging file so infrequently that it shouldn't be an issue, but drives designed mostly for read performance (like a CF or SSD) are good places for it.

 

[phenomtom]

Readyboost works great for me. I used all of a 4gb flash drive. I don't notice an improvement normally, but when I use huge applications its much faster. Especially if I run like 10 runescape bots at a time.