ReadyBoost like feature for OS X?

[CPressland]

Hey Guys,

I've recently lost my Core i7, 8GB RAM iMac and had to move back to an older MacMini 2009 with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB HDD.

I find with Lion this thing is running pretty slow and the HDD is constantly churning and grinding away, iStat Menus shows 6GB of SWAP used so it's clear I need more RAM but I really cannot afford anymore DDR3 at the moment so I was wondering if a Windows 7 Feature has any kind of Mac OS Equivalent. I've got a 8GB USB Stick here that's completely unused and I was wondering if I could use it as low priority memory like the Windows 7 Ready Boost Feature.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks

Chris

[PNWDweller]

To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing like Readyboost for the Mac.

[Scorbing]

Hey Guys,

I've recently lost my Core i7, 8GB RAM iMac and had to move back to an older MacMini 2009 with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB HDD.

I find with Lion this thing is running pretty slow and the HDD is constantly churning and grinding away, iStat Menus shows 6GB of SWAP used so it's clear I need more RAM but I really cannot afford anymore DDR3 at the moment so I was wondering if a Windows 7 Feature has any kind of Mac OS Equivalent. I've got a 8GB USB Stick here that's completely unused and I was wondering if I could use it as low priority memory like the Windows 7 Ready Boost Feature.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks

Chris

Macs are not PCs dude. MacOS X is not Windows, they do not need such a thing. They work fine as it is.

[BletchleyPark]

Can't tell if sarcasm...

[firelord42]

There is a way to do read-boost like functionality but in reality it is really a swap file hack.

I originally thought the best way would be to mount the swap file directory to the usb stick, but I found a better way online.

As a warning, when you do this, you probably want to reformat to HFS+ on your USB stick and you probably wont be able to remove it until you change it back *AND* restart your computer.

Anyways, I found this online: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20001215021440138

I also recommend you look through the comments. Good luck and please tell us if it works. As always, I recommend you make a backup before doing major changes to your OSX system.

EDIT: I also would like to note that your swap space will be completely capped at 8GB using this technique.

[CPressland]

To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing like Readyboost for the Mac.

That certainly seams to be the trend :(

Macs are not PCs dude. MacOS X is not Windows, they do not need such a thing. They work fine as it is.

Actually they are, in every way, Intel Chipsets, Intel Processors, Nvidia Graphics, DDR3 Memory. And yes, they work fine, but not when I've just gone from an iMac with 8GB of RAM to a Mac Mini with 2GB and am having to open projects which require massive amounts of memory. Alas, I have since upgraded the unit to 8GB

Can't tell if sarcasm...

It is, but Mac Users 'trolling' the Windows area get Warnings. Idiots trolling the Mac forums get nothing.

There is a way to do read-boost like functionality but in reality it is really a swap file hack.

I originally thought the best way would be to mount the swap file directory to the usb stick, but I found a better way online.

As a warning, when you do this, you probably want to reformat to HFS+ on your USB stick and you probably wont be able to remove it until you change it back *AND* restart your computer.

Anyways, I found this online: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20001215021440138

I also recommend you look through the comments. Good luck and please tell us if it works. As always, I recommend you make a backup before doing major changes to your OSX system.

EDIT: I also would like to note that your swap space will be completely capped at 8GB using this technique.

But USB is slower than my Internal Hard Drive. Moving the entire SWAP file here would be very silly.

[firelord42]

But USB is slower than my Internal Hard Drive. Moving the entire SWAP file here would be very silly.

But it would take the swapping stress off the drive :p

The internal HDD may be faster, but if its bogged down with I/O your swap in and out of ram is being slowed. In that context, it may be quicker to dedicate the entire usb drive to swap.

Actually, now I am curious... I want to find some hard numbers on HDD I/O and the ability to handle paged memory.

[nub]

But USB is slower than my Internal Hard Drive. Moving the entire SWAP file here would be very silly.

The core idea of ReadyBoost is that a flash drive has a much faster seek time (less than 1 ms), allowing it to satisfy requests faster than reading files from a hard disk. ... USB 2.0 flash drives are slower for sequential reads and writes than modern desktop hard drives. Desktop hard drives can sustain anywhere from 2 to 10 times the transfer speed of USB 2.0 flash drives ...

[Reggi Tirtakusumah]

On 8/8/2011 at 0:23 AM, Scorbing said:

Macs are not PCs dude. MacOS X is not Windows, they do not need such a thing. They work fine as it is.

Yes you can. I don't know if it's the same. But creating stripped raid set of my thunbdrives insanely improved my performance.

[PsYcHoKiLLa]

Way to resurrect a 6 yr old thread!

[Reggi Tirtakusumah]

1 hour ago, PsYcHoKiLLa said:

Way to resurrect a 6 yr old thread!

Still unanswered tho lol

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Please do not resurrect old threads.

 

//Locked