Best Ready Boost media to use.

[TuuS]

First my system.

Lenovo Thinkpad T61, core2duo 2.5ghz, 4GB ram (ddr2), SATA2 hdd.

I currently have 1GB of Intel turbo ram installed which I believe works similar to the way "Ready boost" works, but if someone can explain the difference, that would be nice too, but my question is about adding some flash memory so I can activate readyboost.

Since having a usb device sticking out the side of my laptop isn't desireable, I'm considering using the 4in1 card reader it comes with. I was looking at some SDHC cards (class 10) which are rated at 10MB/s, but there are some that are rated at 30MB/s too, although they cost a lot more. I believe usb2.0 is rated at 54MB/s? and are much cheaper, but it's a shame it would be so awkward on a laptop.

Are these cards going to be fast enough to be of any real help?

Should I get a 32GB class 10 for $40, or and extreme class 10 that is 30MB/s for twice as much, or should I just go with an SSD drive?

Or how about a cheaper cars, perhaps a class 6 or 10 in 8GB size ($5-10).

Am I going to see enough improvement to be worth doing this? there is also driver updates and compatibility issues I've read about with SDHC cards, so it may be more trouble then it's worth and I'm not really sure if having the turbo ram will negate much of the benefit of readybooost. I'm sure it's a lot faster then flash memory in any of these cards. I have a 512MB compact flash card I could use, it's old so it's probably slow, but it's only taking up space now, but microsoft recommends the readyboost memory be 1-3 times size of ram I think (4-12GB), so would a 512MB card be of any benefit? (min size for readyboost is 256MB)

Thanks in advance,

TuuS

 

[pparks1]

ReadyBoost is intended for very low end machines with little RAM. I don't see you benefitting in any way whatsoever.

 

[Hopalong X]

+1 pparks.

4GB's of RAM is perfect for Win7 64bit. I went from 4GB to 8GB RAM and I think I just wasted money doing so.

If you had 1-2 GB of RAM then it would probably be helpful on x86/32bit.

My 2 cents.
Mike

 

[pparks1]

4GB's of RAM is perfect for Win7 64bit. I went from 4GB to 8GB RAM and I think I just wasted money doing so.

I've suggested to many people that if they already have 4GB, they likely wont' benefit by going to 8. But they see a cheap price and just assume more must be better. If I didn't run concurrent VM's, I wouldn't have 8GB of RAM in my box.

 

[TuuS]

Actually I'd like to go beyond 4gb, but this machine is limited to 4.

I do a LOT of multitasking with it. I normally have three internet browsers open and a couple dozen web pages, photoshop x64 and a host of other apps. I actually often grind it to a halt for lack of ram.

Regarding ram, while I got your attention let me ask another question. I'm aware that any 32bit app is limited to 2GB of memory, but is that 2GB of physical RAM or 2GB combined RAM and page file memory? The reason I ask is whenever I see an app grinding to a halt, it never shows near 2GB of memory in use, but (for example), I've seen Google Chrome (chrome.exe) using over 800MB of ram and grinding to a halt when I have 2GB of free ram available,so I'm assuming it's reaching the max that a 32 app can handle? perhaps the ram and paging memory combined are reaching the limits?

At the moment I'm no where near grinding to a halt, but Chrome is running 12 (chrome.exe) processes ranging from 50 to 500MB of ram each, so it seem they use a "work-a-round" of running the app multiple times to get past the 2GB limit?

So your probably thinking I'm insane for expecting my laptop to run so much at once, but hey... if it will do it, then why not, and if there is something I can do to get it to handle more, then I want to look into it.

ps. Anyone know much about the Intel Turbo Ram? and thank you for your opinions... I think you've convinced me not to spend a lot of money on a flash card.

 

[pparks1]

I believe it's 2GB per process of physical ram and the rest pages to the hard drive. I don't think I have ever run a personal application on a workstation or laptop which has needed more than 2GB of RAM for a single process.

You can multitask with 4GB of RAM just fine. I use this laptop daily for work. I usually have 2 browsers open with multiple tabs, Outlook, Word, Excel, VMWare vSphere client, remote desktop, VisionApp, KeePass, Media Monkey, Paint.net, and many others from time to time and my machine just churns right along.

 

[TuuS]

Some of the browser based games that use adobe flash can run up the ram to unstable limits, and if you have several of them open at the same time, then it's definitely more then a 4GB machine can handle. I'm not saying your wrong, you can obviously run the apps you mentioned and keep things stable, but there are combinations of apps that are just to much for a 4GB pc to run .

As for the 2GB app limit, I thought the same as you, but having seen this happen so many times makes me wonder if the programs ability to address the memory is a total of all program memory, regardless if it's physical ram chips or harddrive space used as ram. I guess to be 100% sure I'd have to do a lot of research.

Again I thank you all, you've convinced me that readyboost isn't going to be something I'm likely to invest in, but I might try using my existing 512mb compact flash card to see if it makes any difference at all. I might experiment with a usb device too, just as a simple way of testing readyboost.

I would still like to know more about the Intel Turbo Ram, like exactly what it does. The product advertises moving popular processes into this memory chip that installed in a mini pci-expess slot. My best guess is that it works like readyboost except with much faster memory, like ram memory speed instead of usb speed (or slower).

I also have an older thinkpad with a Pentium4, 1.9ghz and 1GB ram. Unfortunately is only supports usb1.1 and has no cardreaders installed, so I'm wondering if readyboost would help it.

 

[corpsbeginners]

8gb ram is not an overkill. i play SC2 and it uses 1.8gb ram so i can use up to 4gb with all the services and some apps . unusable ram amounts to .8gb. superfetch makes use of the remaining ram. so i end up with .3gb free. superfetch cache applications that u always use. so 8gb makes sense.

 

[corpsbeginners]

readyboost compliments the superfetch with extra memory of the flashdisk drives which are good in random read/write. results are very noticeable in <2gb ram systems.

 

[seavixen32]

Microsoft seems to suggest that Readyboost is helpful, even with with today's larger RAM setups.

ReadyBoost - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows

 

[TuuS]

Actually my laptop died, but being it's a thinkpad (best laptops ever), by the time it died (fault of nVidia, not lenovo), the secondary markets were flooded with corp trade ins, so I was able to get a good used system board very cheap.

I also found that the 4GB ram limit didn't exist, the machine gladly accepted 8GB. There were no 4GB sodimms when it was designed, so the listed the max as 4GB 2x2GB.

I also installed 2GB of Intel Turbo memory. I think this should be far superior to readyboast. I had 1GB turbo mem installed before, but had the SATA controller set to compatibility mode so it was crippling the turbo rams effectiveness.

I also found a 3rd party bios to enable SATA support, so this machine is running a lot smoother. I can now have multiple browswers open with multiple flash games without it acting stupid and having flash crash on me.

I'm looking forward to getting an SSD drive too, but I don't think the technology is ready. A drive with no moving parts should have zero errors and pretty much every SSD I've seen has some bad reviews.

I think in a year or so the new SSDs will work without any chance of error, at least for several years. The Hybrid drives have even worse reputation. I think the firmware that desides whhat to store in ssd is faulty, and a hybrid will only work if a user knows how to configure it for their behavior, like specifying what files to store in solidstate, and what one's not to. Software can't seem to do this efficiently and it ends up making the drivers slower, and they fail with corrput data.

 

[Corazon]

My laptop has 3GB of RAM (256MB is used by the on-board video, so only 2816MB is actually available to Windows).
Since I have a Sandisk 4GB SDHC laying around, I went ahead and dedicated it to ReadyBoost for a few days (using the internal Realtek USB2.0 card reader).

I have seen a very slight difference, apps opening and working just a bit smoother, or so it seemed. It was hardly noticeable though.
So, from personal experience I'd say it's definitely not worth it with 4GB of physical RAM or even just 3GB of it.

 

[TuuS]

My laptop has 3GB of RAM (256MB is used by the on-board video, so only 2816MB is actually available to Windows).
Since I have a Sandisk 4GB SDHC laying around, I went ahead and dedicated it to ReadyBoost for a few days (using the internal Realtek USB2.0 card reader).

I have seen a very slight difference, apps opening and working just a bit smoother, or so it seemed. It was hardly noticeable though.
So, from personal experience I'd say it's definitely not worth it with 4GB of physical RAM or even just 3GB of it.

If your running a 32bit OS, you should consider upgrading if your system supports it. 3GB is barely enough to have fun these days in my opinion.

If your stuck with 32bit, there are versions of windows server that allow massive amounts of ram. Server 03 datacenter allows 64GB on the 32bit version, server 08 I think allows 512GB in 32bit.

Some older machines have hardware limitations on ram too, so check that before planning any upgrades.

 

[Corazon]

Thanks. But my desktop motherboard is indeed limited to 4GB of total RAM, on my laptop it simply isn't that important (it's kinda slow overall anyway, being a rather basic model).

Once I get a whole new computer I'll definitely go the 64-bit route. But that'll be a while yet...I'm not exactly rich

 

[pparks1]

3GB is barely enough to have fun these days in my opinion.

I will disagree with this.

Most people find their sweet spot to be between 2GB and 4GB of RAM. Very few real world users benefit in any way going from 4GB to 8GB of RAM. Anything about 4GB is lost on most home users, gamers, etc.

 

[noobvious]

My laptop has 3GB of RAM (256MB is used by the on-board video, so only 2816MB is actually available to Windows).
Since I have a Sandisk 4GB SDHC laying around, I went ahead and dedicated it to ReadyBoost for a few days (using the internal Realtek USB2.0 card reader).

I have seen a very slight difference, apps opening and working just a bit smoother, or so it seemed. It was hardly noticeable though.
So, from personal experience I'd say it's definitely not worth it with 4GB of physical RAM or even just 3GB of it.

The speed of the card can make a difference...what class card is it? My netbook only has 1GB installed, but I found a class 10 4GB SDHC card, and it helps some. I doesn't make the netbook anything like my desktop, of course, but for the $8 or so I spent on the card, it was worth it.

 

[Corazon]

Not sure - I think it's a class-4 card? (The label shows a 4 in a circle.) The card can do about 12MB/sec writing and 17MB/sec reading.
But again, I simply wanted to make the point that with more than 2GB of RAM in your computer, ReadyBoost won't do very much for you.

 

[noobvious]

Not sure - I think it's a class-4 card? (The label shows a 4 in a circle.) The card can do about 12MB/sec writing and 17MB/sec reading.
But again, I simply wanted to make the point that with more than 2GB of RAM in your computer, ReadyBoost won't do very much for you.

Agreed...I certainly wouldn't bother using ReadyBoost on my desktop with its 4GB of RAM.

 

[corpsbeginners]

yeah i think so.because i have an 8 gb ram and i still dedicate 8gb via lacie moskeyto and 8 gb via sandisk ultra, thats 16gb *2 (because of the compression/encryption) and noticed some boost.

 

[corpsbeginners]

yeah i think also, because of superfetch/readyboost make my system snappier. give some 5 mins after booting and cache builds up in the ram, i monitor also that my readyboost drives randomly read and write.