USB Speedboost

Allan87 said:
I've tried two different USB sticks and both fail the test, which ones do I need?
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hi do not believe all of the hype about needing specific flash key, i purchaced my key form a big well known store, a 256mb usb 2 model, works perfectly, i guess its luck.
 
if i have a decently fast sd card (150x i think), can i just get a pcmcia (or even express slot if one exists) card reader to use readyboost?
 
My Kingston 1GB stick wouldn't work unless I formatted it from FAT to NTFS - maybe worth a try?

skanky said:
if i have a decently fast sd card (150x i think), can i just get a pcmcia (or even express slot if one exists) card reader to use readyboost?
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SD cards seem to be quite fussy, even some of the 'High Speed' ones fail as they actually don't meet the speed requirements that Vista tests for. You could have a 133x card which doesn't work, whereas a 50x might.
 
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i've got a datawrite 1gb usb stick which when inserted, windows has an autoplay option to use for readyboost. thats all well and good but i dont fancy having a usb stick plugged in and sticking out the side all the time.

i prefer a stealthy expresscard adapter option, pcmcia will be used by the audigy, when creative finally get round to proper driver support over spdif!
 
The Readyboost FAQ can be found here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx

I've currently got a PNY 4GB USB2 drive being used as a Readyboost drive - for the 1:1 ratio with my 4GB of RAM.
I will get around to running some benchmarks at some point.
The only reason I went for the 4GB PNY was that I managed to find a store selling them at an extremely good price and the PNY 256MB, 512MB, 1GB & 2GB units were all listed and tested by people and shown to definitely be Readyboost compatible - I had no firm information the 4GB flavour would be, but thankfully it was/is.
 
Gopher_By_Fende said:
i've got a PNY 512Mb and it says that its failed the test for speedboost
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Which PNY have you got?
I've got the "Attache 4GB" - one that I think they have now discontinued.
It's a true USB 2.0 device rather than being "USB 2 Compatible".
A good list I found here:

http://www.grantgibson.co.uk/misc/readyboost/

*Edit*
On reading through my own link provided it would appear that most PNY devices are actually listed as incompatible - sorry about that.
 
Gopher_By_Fende said:
i've got a PNY 512Mb and it says that its failed the test for speedboost
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mine also did i got the 356mb vers, i then renserted it, then all i did was untick the box then set it to use it manualy works perfectly, although the pricve of the ready boost certified ones now £25 including delivery for a 1gb i have jsut orderd one of them, cant complain for that price, and btw did you know you can even use a old hard drive my m8 has, he ahs used a old ata drive he ahd lying aorund, it works great, jsut another idea for you to try.
 
There appears to be a few "ways around" getting a device that failed the test to work.
However - you really should remember that they failed for a reason and that reason wasn't trivial.
By hacking or "finding a way around" getting your device to work you could well be doing more harm than good to your performance.

Example would be that if your device failed its Readyboost check because the Random reads across the whole unit were not up to the specification Microsoft want it to be.
You force it on anyways and it sill be attempting to read files from a sub-standard, slow cache - performance drop rather than the increase you would expect from any device passing the test.

If it doesn't work I would say to proceed with caution and your best bet would be to buy one that does work.
Forcing is not going to help anything at all.
 
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