Readyboost

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Right, a quick question about this, since I've been thinking. When I plug in my external hard drive, it offers to use it as a readyboost thingy for vista, giving lots more ram. I've just been reading up on this, and apparently you can give up to 4Gb of extra ram like this. Since the drive is always plugged in anyway, and is only used for storage (Its full of anime and TV shows) is there any reason not to make it readyboost as well? Would I still be able to access it with RB turned on? And while the performance increase may not be too much, it would still be a boost for free.
Its a Usb2.0 drive, I think its Western Digital but rebranded by 'Element' if that helps. 2Gb system ram at the moment, which gets maxed out my Supreme Commander, among other games.
 
it's not designed for that, it's designed to use usb flash sticks as mini pagefile's basically, because of their fast read/write access

ram in your machine is 100x faster, upgrading ram is much better for performance
 
Aye, but its more the fact that its just sitting there doing (For most of the time) nothing. May as well get some extra (albeit slower) ram out there for free.

And when I plug the drive in, vista does ask me if I want to readyboost it. Not clicked it though, in case it would want to format it, or wouldn't let me access the drive while its being used like this.
 
it's not 'extra ram'

it's slower than a usb stick so vista should benchmark it, then tell you it's too slow for readyboost anyway


readyboost only really helps with systems that have 512 or 1024mb of ram.

forget the idea
 
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The external hard drive would be slower than using a swap file on your main hard drive so there's absolutely no performance advantage available. Windows won't let you do it anyway.
 
ReadyBoost is quite clever. It is basically an extension to Superfetch... where it creates a "Superfetch Store" on your USB memory stick. But the difference is that it is persistent memory whereas RAM isn't and if you reboot its contents is lost.

ReadyBoost is really really really good for improving boot-up times and general system performance. It does the former on any machine, even a machine running 1,000 tera bytes of RAM would benefit from better boot times. Once the system has booted though and its uptime increases the gains go away quicker the more RAM you have. And it's at this stage that ReadyBoost gets its bad press and people saying "just buy more RAM..." But the fact remains that ReadyBoost does help a lot with low memory systems, especially laptops.
 
NathanE said:
ReadyBoost is quite clever. It is basically an extension to Superfetch... where it creates a "Superfetch Store" on your USB memory stick. But the difference is that it is persistent memory whereas RAM isn't and if you reboot its contents is lost.

ReadyBoost is really really really good for improving boot-up times and general system performance. It does the former on any machine, even a machine running 1,000 tera bytes of RAM would benefit from better boot times. Once the system has booted though and its uptime increases the gains go away quicker the more RAM you have. And it's at this stage that ReadyBoost gets its bad press and people saying "just buy more RAM..." But the fact remains that ReadyBoost does help a lot with low memory systems, especially laptops.
Click to expand...

The problem, as always, is that most of the people slating various parts of Vista don't understand what they are supposed to do. Readyboost is not meant to replace additional ram, but to supplement it, especially in systems that are not always up (which are the majority of home systems in normal use)
 
I'm still somewhat tempted to get a fast 2 or 4GB SDHC card for my XPS M1330. Doesn't seem very expensive, but I just don't know if it's show any particular improvement. Seems like a good way of using ReadyBoost without occupying a USB port though.
 
TheVoice said:
I'm still somewhat tempted to get a fast 2 or 4GB SDHC card for my XPS M1330. Doesn't seem very expensive, but I just don't know if it's show any particular improvement. Seems like a good way of using ReadyBoost without occupying a USB port though.
Click to expand...
If you recall, my 1530 came with a 2GB one, but I have since bought a 4GB one and have it perma-inserted into the machine. I have yet to notice any difference, but its doing no harm being inserted there so what the hell.
 
bledd. said:
read through this, it made my mind up!

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2160&page=1

(multiple pages)
Click to expand...

As NathanE has already pointed out, their bootup test is flawed for starters. Furthermore much of what they are testing is not the sort of thing that readyboost is supposed to change anyway, so seeing no change is hardly surprising.

If you want to see the benefits readyboost provides, run with it for a few months then one day remove it, then you'll understand what it does and what it's for.
 
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Yeah no idea why they were testing WinRAR... that is only going to be affected by memory bandwidth and whatever else you are doing at the same time. Same for gaming - why did they test Doom expecting to see an FPS gain?

I don't think "PCSTATS" quite understands what Superfetch/ReadyBoost are designed to do. The type of performance improvements they provide aren't easily benchmarkable. I don't know of any off-the-shelf benchmarkware that can test them.

What they really should have done is:

1. Run a series of benchmarks, e.g. how long it takes for Doom3 to load up (*NOT* FPS once it is loaded... that is pointless). How long Windows takes to boot. Etc. Write these results down.
2. Plug in USB stick and setup ReadyBoost. Or if you want to test Superfetch in general then prior to step #1 make sure you flush your Superfetch cache and/or do a fresh install of Windows Vista.
3. Leave it to "brew and mature", like a fine wine, for 2+ weeks but continue using the machine normally. And if you intend on testing Doom3 (or whatever) start-up time then make sure you load/play the game several times during the brewing period.
4. Re-run the same benchmarks you did at step #1.
5. Pick your jaw up from the floor.
6. Buy several bottles of the stuff!
 
Tell me something. If I have 4GB USB RB drive and set 2GB for RB Will it be okay removing it everyday once PC is off to use at work? Or will it defeat the whole point?
 
Yeah ReadyBoost is designed with this in mind. The fact that it lets you allocate a certain percentage of the drive and that you can "unplug" the drive at any time should provide a sufficient enough hint to users that ReadyBoost doesn't tie/lock the drive down to that machine.

Obviously when it is unplugged from your Vista machine it will reduce the performance. But as soon as you plug it back in... zoooooom again! :D
 
Aah, thats answered my questions. A hard drive will most likely be too slow, and I rarely reboot my PC anyway, so there's no point.

Thanks for all your help :)
 
NathanE said:
Yeah ReadyBoost is designed with this in mind. The fact that it lets you allocate a certain percentage of the drive and that you can "unplug" the drive at any time should provide a sufficient enough hint to users that ReadyBoost doesn't tie/lock the drive down to that machine.

Obviously when it is unplugged from your Vista machine it will reduce the performance. But as soon as you plug it back in... zoooooom again! :D
Click to expand...

i was going to start a new thread on this very topic.
thanks nathan for clearing it up.
now where the hell did i put my memory stick.......

jobe
 
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