Readyboost -

[Belloni]

I'm trying to use this feature again but i can't seem to get it working.

I used it before on another USB drive but that's gone now, and i've just read that you can only use Readyboost once?!?!

I've inserted an SD card etc to put readyboost on, but the option doesn't appear, is it because i used it before then?! If so, how can i fix it?

 

[rickh]

Readyboost is only enabled for drives that are fast enough.
Windows does a quick benchmark of every removable media you plug into your pc to see it readyboost should be enabled or not.

If you have more than 512mb of ram then readyboost doesn't increase performance anyway.

 

[Jae-So]

+1 for ready boost bein pointless

 

[SiriusB]

You are all wrong. ReadyBoost can provide a performance enhancement regardless of how much RAM you have. It caches paged data into the USB drive as fetching it from a USB drive is usually quicker than grabbing it from a mechanical HDD.

 

[currantloaf]

Im running vista with 1gb ram. Far from idea. Ready boost does indeed help with performance, but limited certian types of sticks due to speed as stated above

 

[rickh]

You are all wrong. ReadyBoost can provide a performance enhancement regardless of how much RAM you have. It caches paged data into the USB drive as fetching it from a USB drive is usually quicker than grabbing it from a mechanical HDD.

This graph shows the impact of readyboost with various configurations of ram size & readyboost size.

If you have more than 512mb ram (which most pc's do these days) then it doesn't make any difference.

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2163/6

 

[arknor]

yea cant say i notice a difference with it on or off (4gb ram and a 4gb usb stick)

i only use the usb stick for if i need to flash firmware/bios and for firefox/thunderbird profile backups so i just let ready boost do its thing on 90% of the drive, if i didnt have a usb drive anyway then i wouldnt bother getting one just for readyboost