Any reason to use Readyboost on Windows 7 X64 with 8GB?

[Antman]

...I only have 2gb on an x64 system, but it runs perectly fine for what I need and I do beleive the virtual memory has something to do with this.

Virtual memory has everything to do with this. Also note: Virtual memory=Physical Memory + Page File.

I know you use 800 MHz, but I have a case of PC5300 - several dozen 1GB sticks. I would gladly send you four of them, but you have to send me a prepaid mailer. I am tight that way.

 

[Generator]

I would gladly send you four of them, but you have to send me a prepaid mailer. I am tight that way.

LOL! thanks for the offer mate but it would be cheaper for all for me to just go and buy some with the air-miles involved!

I do appreciate the offer though sincerely.

 

[pparks1]

That all depends on what applications you plan on running, I could kill that amount in a couple of mouse clicks.

As could I. Being a systems admin for a living, I run quite a number of virtual machines and is the sole reason that I have more than 4GB of RAM in my new box. Even though RAM is cheap, it's only my use of virtual machines that eat into this much RAM. However, I don't usually have more than 2 or 3 running at any given time

 

[Generator]

As could I. Being a systems admin for a living, I run quite a number of virtual machines and is the sole reason that I have more than 4GB of RAM in my new box. Even though RAM is cheap, it's only my use of virtual machines that eat into this much RAM. However, I don't usually have more than 2 or 3 running at any given time

which is exactly my point, your running 2 orr 3 at a time with 4gb?! I've got 2gb and I normally have 2 or 3 VM's with testing the recent leaks etc...

Are you running any heavy app's within all of these though which is the main thing. It's not how many OS' but what you're running within them.

 

[pparks1]

Are you running any heavy app's within all of these though which is the main thing. It's not how many OS' but what you're running within them.

Nope, just testing and learning. Often times, it's just the OS and a small web app that I'm trying to get working. Or maybe a Microsoft SQL cluster or an Exchange server...but nothing with any real load.

 

[Antman]

Also note: Virtual memory=Physical Memory + Page File...

This is an oversimplification. In context, correct, but in fact, not true. Virtual memory is all allocated virtual address spaces combined. It is possible to contain all virtual memory in RAM.

 

[mikinho]

This thread has gone a few different routes, I just want to respond to the OP with my opinion.

Even with 8GB of RAM I would recommend using ReadyBoost if you have a FAST USB flash drive. Most drives made in the last 2 years will be fast enough but older ones you won't notice any difference.

Certain features in Windows 7 were designed to take advantage of ReadyBoost when available such as Windows Search and Library dbs.

I did want to mention one thing though, if you have a fast enough system hard drive Windows 7 will disable ReadyBoost. This is a new feature. Two of my systems have OCZ Vertex SSD drives and I can't enable ReadyBoost if I wanted to.

Note: I'm sure there are some hacks to do so but I thought this was a smart feature added by Microsoft, to determine whether ReadyBoost would help your system or not.

 

[Antman]

I cannot provide an essay on RAM, Virtual Memory and PageFile superior to the one found here.

From here:
"If a page of memory is not referenced for a while, it is written to the pagefile... If that piece of memory is then later referenced by a program, the operating system reads the memory page back from the pagefile into physical memory..."

During the time that the page is resident in the pagefile, there more RAM available for a new process or call. Which means a faster system when you have a page file.

There is a related myth - "Setting DisablePagingExecutive to 1 improves performance by preventing the kernel from paging to disk". DisablePagingExecutive applies only to ntoskrnl.exe. It does not apply to win32k.sys

Of course, the question posed by the OP was regarding ReadyBoost.

To oversimplify, ReadyBoost does not increase performance - ReadyBoost increases system responsiveness. In theory, data read from flash occurs 12x faster than from HDD.

There is no direct corelation between a disk buffer and ReadyBoost. Windows memory management is much more sophisticated than that. Disk I/O related to data and disk I/O related to memory are completely different processes. Windows will handle data cached to ReadyBoost based on read speed not write speed. The write speed consideration is addressed when ReadyBoost is enabled.

My beautiful baby girl is demanding my full attention. More later.

Check out ReadyBoost Monitor

Advanced users might prefer to open Resource Monitor and look for activity on the ReadyBoost cache file.0

 

[mikinho]

Thanks Antman for Bruce Sanderson's article. And not to take the thread too off-topic but some other interesting reads on memory are: Mark's Blog : Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory and Mark's Blog : Pushing the Limits of Windows: Paged and Nonpaged Pool, both by Mark Russinovich.

 

[jimbo45]

how do you even use all 8GB ram. I have 8GB and have not found a way to use it all. Even with virtual machine and gaming.

Hi all
For a home user its actually quite hard to use all 8GB physical RAM -- even with loads of concurrent office sessions, web browsing and 3 concurrent Virtual machines running the amount of paging the system does is still very small.

Unless you do a HUGE amount of intensive gaming (even here the CPU power and the quality of the graphics processor(s) are actually more significant) 8GB is more than enough. Most of the time it will be sitting in the machine relatively unused.

If you are running a server with loads and loads of users then more RAM will also help as well.

So my answer is for an 8GB machine -- No don't bother

even for a 4GB machine I wouldn't bother either -- if I had 4GB and needed to use readyboost I'd just install more RAM.

4GB is probably more than sufficient for around 90% of home users anyway (with TODAYS apps -- future applications might demand different resources).

BTW one of my VM's is actually quite large for a home VM -- its running a complete SAP enterprise ERP IDES system with an inbuilt Oracle DB system. Its running on XP SP3 with an 80 GB Virtual disk split into one 15 GB system partition and one 65 GB Oracle Database data partition.

Even this VM runs fine given its own 2GB RAM space on my 8GB W7 Host.

I really would have difficulty finding enough apps in daily normal use to bring a decent 8GB machine to its knees.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[MilesAhead]

I used to run with ReadyBoost service disabled until I realized it's related to ReadyBoot and Superfetch. So even if you don't have a USB plugged in, you may want to leave the service enabled.

AFA pagefile or no pagefile, it's a religious argument that no amount of statistics or white papers will prove to the satisfaction of devotees of a particular strategy or setting. It's your computer. Try stuff. If it works, use it that way.

 

[billdo]

Yes, I mean to set your pagefile = RAM x 1.0 or RAM x 1.5. For example, I have 8GB of RAM, and Windows suggested a 12GB page file. So, since I have 1TB of disk space and well over 850GB of free space, I figured why not.

Again, do I need a 12GB page file with 8GB RAM? Not likely.
Can I get the disk space back later if I need it? Yes.

You do not need a 12GB pagefile.That 1.5 x physical ram theory was used in the days of 256MB-512MB physical ram.

Just set your page file to 500MB-1GB so windows and apps will be happy

 

[johngalt]

Better yet - let Windows set it by itself. The core code is a lot better at handling things like this than it was in the days of ME....

 

[pparks1]

You do not need a 12GB pagefile.That 1.5 x physical ram theory was used in the days of 256MB-512MB physical ram.

While I understand what you are saying, Windows always created 1 at 1x physical RAM, and suggested 1.5 x physical RAM when I changed it to being manually controlled...so not sure if it's still only applicable from the old days.

Like I said, I did a 1TB drive because it was cheap and still fast. I've got about 850+GB still free on it...so I figure why not. I've got a dedicated file server box at home....which stores all of my stuff for long term storage anyway...so disk space won't be an issue for quite some time.

 

[HerrKaLeun]

I think with a HDD one just leaves it at aoutomatic. I have 8 GB RAM and W7 allocated about 8 GB. On manual it recommends 11 GB. Either way, useless to optimize it. some legacy software definitely gets weird with not enough page file. there really is no benefiit to save some GB with today's HDDs.

However, if you have an SSD where each GB is uber-expensive, such optimization of the page-file size might be useful.

 

[pparks1]

Better yet - let Windows set it by itself. The core code is a lot better at handling things like this than it was in the days of ME....

I thought if you set it manually and gave it a particular size, it didn't have to spend any time resizing it on the fly...plus having a dedicated size right off the bat kept the file contiguous...without any fragmentation. That's why I choose to manually set it and have given it a set size.

 

[Antman]

kept the file contiguous...without any fragmentation...

When sys managed, the file is reset on each boot. It won't fragment any way if it is rarely referenced. Its primary function on a RAM rich platform is the allocation of nearly unlimited virtual memory.

Resizing on the fly is a performance consideration, however your earlier statements regarding modern disk performance are valid and apply here.

 

[grimmster]

So is there an easy answer? Win 7 64 bit and 4gb or more of system memory, do you need a usb drive for readyboost? I dont think it ever got answered.

I saw a post to open resource monitor, but what do I look for there to see if it is doing anything?

 

[Antman]

Dive this a read:
ReadyBoost works, but not a miracle - istartedsomething

Aged to Vista, but I think it will get you going.

 

[Captain Zero]

8GB of RAM? Disable your pagefile, entirely.

ReadyBoost/SuperFetch is disabled, by default, it Win7 detects it's on SSD.