Windows ReadyBoost does it actually work?

[yadielfeliciano]

I've used this option in vista and set it to use 1gb of the device and didn't see major speed improvement :l does readyboost work better on windows 7?

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

Speed of the device you are using also determines how effective it is.

 

[weh]

ReadyBoost's effect is most evident when used on systems with limited resources. On systems with ample system memory, fast hard drives and large page files, ReadyBoost has little effect with most applications.

 

[smarteyeball]

On a machine with only 512mb RAM + readyboost, it's very noticeable.

However with 1GB it's a lot less noticeable and as weh mentioned, systems with ample resources - it's basically pointless.

 

[r00o9huy]

On a machine with only 512mb RAM + readyboost, it's very noticeable.

However with 1GB it's a lot less noticeable and as weh mentioned, systems with ample resources - it's basically pointless.

True...

I tried it with 2GB and then with 4GB Readyboost. There was really no noticable difference. On low spec systems you will notice that probably... im quiet sure about that.:huh:

 

[The Sly Assassin]

^^^, i agree with that, tried it with my 4gB RAM system, didnt notice any difference.

 

[Appletini74]

Have it on my netbook (1GB Ram and small SSD). I use 4GB Readyboost on a High-End 16GB HDSC Card, and I saw a huge difference while using Office 2007 or other Apps. But I don't know if 4GB are useful ; maybe I could only use like 2GB with the same results...

 

[Andypants]

I work with large files in photoshop quite often. I've got 4Gb ram(only 3.2Gb seen by 64bit Windows 7).

When I open a photoshop file of say 800mb it creates a temporary page file of up to and over 15Gb on my hard drive, and sometimes I run into error messages saying 'not enough memory - increase page file size' or something similar. I sometimes set my pagefile to use both my secondary internal hard drive and my external hard drive - would redyboost be a better for using my external drive than just letting my pagefile use it?

 

[weh]

The number 1 best thing to throw at PhotoShop (assuming an x64 operating system and the current version of PS) is more main memory. This reduces PS's need to cache to disk as often.

PhotoShop manages its own temporary scratch files to which it writes image data that it cannot hold in memory. These are best directed to a drive other than that which contains the operating system, applications, and your primary working data storage. It does no good to direct them to a different partition on the same drive: That just makes the OS and hard drive work more to retrieve the data.

A page file stores blocks of data from active memory which have been forced out because of more pressing need for that memory space. Increasing active memory reduces this need. Placing the page file on a drive not containing the operating system and applications often improves efficiency. Page file size is best set to a fixed size based on total system memory installed. (see: setting page file info)

ReadyBoost stores snippets of data that are repeatedly requested from the hard drives on the premise that the media used for the ReadyBoost storage can respond much more quickly than the slower, mechanical hard drive. This is very different from the purpose of the page file (although both are aimed at increasing the overall efficiency of the whole system). ReadyBoost is most effective in system with minimal system memory and/or in situations where a finite number of file segments are needed repeatedly by the operating system and/or applications.

 

[Andypants]

Thanx weh, niceley explained. Unfortunately I'm limited to 4gig RAM in my laptop - and can't even access all of that - as far as I know my bios does not allow it, think I should get myself one of those 16Gig flashdrives for readyboost, can't do any harm

 

[fusion1]

Yeah I haven't noticed much difference with 2gb or 4gb installed trying to use readyboost. I wonder if a 512mb system with a 16gb USB drive would be like a 1gb system speed wise?

 

[akash3656]

In launching apps, maybe, but no good for multi-tasking....

 

[exo]

Like SuperFetch. I think ReadyBoost needs some time to settle and if you're just testing clean builds every other week or all you're doing is loading games and streaming large video files and stuff you probably won't see any difference other than a bit faster startup and app load times but on certain kinds of heavy use multimedia, programming type workstations I think it might even have it's place even if you have a boatload of ram and a fast HDD.. that is at least until OCZ drops the Colossus SSDs in a few weeks (and I cry when I see the initial prices.. )

I don't think of readyboost as extra, slow ram, but more like a little ghetto SSD drive for small files that are accessed often, and frees up the hdd to work on the big stuff instead of scrambling around for all these little files that take it relatively long to access. I'm pretty amazed at how fast GIMP x64 loads on my machine now for example. The thumb drives may not be able to compete with a hard drive for data rate but the access time is much lower (my cruzer 8gb says 0.5ms in HDTune, while my Seagate 1tb hdd is 12.6ms) I don't really claim to understand how it works at all but it seems to work for me, just my 2c.

 

[delthibodeaux]

Interestingly my Windows Vista with 4GB used my Readyboost but Windows 7 RC Ultimate told me it would not help because my resources were fine.

 

[exo]

Strange, my 7 with 4gb installed let me use ReadyBoost on two 8gb flash drives at the same time. I ended up removing the slower one because I don't have any other flash drives and I've heard ReadyBoost wears them out pretty quick... and it just seemed like it would be overkill and probably wouldn't be worth it since the other drive had a lot lower access time and higher data rates. From what I've heard 2.5x your physical ram is about as much useful readyboost space as you can get.

 

[delthibodeaux]

Thanks ECO, after reading your explanation about using 8GB flash drives, I looked at mine and it was only a 2GB flash drive. That is probably why 7 said it wouldn't make an improvement.

 

[chrysalis]

ok before I went sleep earlier I connected up my new 2 gig usb card to my laptop which has 1 gig of ram. I had to enable superfetch.

before plugging it in, the commit was about 1.3 gig and over 950meg ram used. It then proceeded to thrash my hdd for ages, I am guessing moving stuff from pagefile to readyboost. My ram usage is now down to about 600meg ram. So it looks like both of pagefile and some of what was in ram has been moved over to readyboost. Overall the laptop is defenitly more responsive.

Win7 is fast but I was suffering from excessive pagefile usage. To me readyboost seems a logical choice if you out of ram using something like a laptop.

 

[Mike89]

I've got 4Gb ram(only 3.2Gb seen by 64bit Windows 7).

Something is not right there. The 64 bit OS should see all of it. A 32 bit OS will show what you stated. If you have an older motherboard, sometimes there will be a setting in the BIOS to enable it to see all of it. I forget now what that BIOS setting is called (I used to have a motheboard that had that setting).

 

[nabilalk]

Just to clarify here. Is a 1GB Windows Vista or 1GB Win 7 considered a low resource system? From what I understood about Readyboost, you are supposed to put a Flash that is double your system memory right? If I use a 2 GB flash drive with a 1GB system, should I see an improvement?

 

[nailgunner]

Strange, my 7 with 4gb installed let me use ReadyBoost on two 8gb flash drives at the same time. I ended up removing the slower one because I don't have any other flash drives and I've heard ReadyBoost wears them out pretty quick... and it just seemed like it would be overkill and probably wouldn't be worth it since the other drive had a lot lower access time and higher data rates. From what I've heard 2.5x your physical ram is about as much useful readyboost space as you can get.

Per Microsoft, a flash drive dedicated to ReadyBoost should last 10 years. Take it for what it's worth because I'm sure they won't refund the price of a worn out drive. But supposedly they improved ReadyBoost for Windows 7. It will now take 8 devices up to 256GB. I still haven't heard what possible use there is for that much ability.