FORCE slow USB drives work READYBOOST in vista

[david_watt]

This "hack" is the most useless piece of information I have seen on Vista yet...

ReadyBoost devices don't just add on as "extra RAM" its only used for disk caching...using slower than MS spec is just dumb....just spend the few dollars it will cost to get one that is compatible you cheapskates!!

[scidhuv00]

Couldn't agree more :yes:

Actually using a flash drive as a swap mechanism is better than going to the hard drive for many reasons.

1 - the hard drive may be doing other things when an application wants to swap a page to the hard drive, the hard drive then has to go back and forth from the swap file to the working file to do its job.

2 - The hard drive generally have a slower seek time than a flash device. A flash device can access any section of memory at any time without having to seek to it, therefore going to and from a flash drive is faster.

The fact is that the transfer rate does play a role in this, but it is ultimately the seek time that should be considered. You aren't writing large files to the swap, you are writing a page of RAM, which is generally pretty small.

So yes, if you have a blazing fast hard drive(or more than one drive which is the optimum solution) then doing this will cause a bottleneck, but if you have a moderately slow hard drive, and insufficient RAM, depending on what you are doing this could provide a speed increase.

[scyphe]

It's so simple, yet people are confused by it...

1. ReadyBoost is "between" RAM & HD when it comes to caching

2. The reason USB sticks can make a difference is because of the near-null latencies when reading/writing and that makes all the difference when it's handling 4kb pages.

3. The bandwidth for USB sticks are on the other hand waay lower than for any normal HD

4. Windows caches bits and pieces of programs that it believes you're going to use (from an algorithm sensing what you start and when and how often)

5. If the USB stick is slower than the MS specs, any gain by using an USB stick will disappear, and the slower it is (while being used), the worse the performance. It's NOT used as RAM, it's a small in-the-middle pagefile on an USB stick in 4kb pages.

6. If you have 1Gb or more, you won't notice a difference.

7. ReadyBoost was pretty much made for people with older computers and older laptops that couldn't upgrade their RAM or didn't want to for some reason.

1Gb RAM > 512mb + ReadyBoost (512-1Gb stick)

If it's a fast stick it doesn't hurt to leave it in and have it as a ReadyBoost device no matter what amount of RAM you have, but the more real RAM you have, the less impact it will make, and above 1Gb of RAM, ReadyBoost will be very difficult to notice at all.

[crazlunatic]

Isn't this tip pretty useless. The guy says that Readyboost has already been made so it accepts the slowest possible USB that will provide a noticable performance difference. Anything lower would just make your PC slower, wouldn't it?

[6785077276]

I tried it on my laptop with 1GB RAM and my Sandisk Ultra II CF Card and I notice applications load a few seconds faster. Not much difference though.

[Daniel F. Administrators]

I can't get it to work, even though I've edited the registry, the drive won't function as a ReadyBoost device. :(

It keeps switching back to 'Do not use this device.' :(

Your device prob has sow regions, go back into regedit and look for "Has slow regions" with the value of 1. Change the value to 0 and re-insert your usb device, it should work now

[netuser]

I was planing to buy SD or CF or Memory stick Card to do so even though I have 2 GB of Ram, reason why I want to do is to Extend the life of HD as I hope onece windows no more write constanntly on HD with Pagefile, the life of HD will be extended normaly ? what do u think ? and also I need advise what type of Card should I go for ?

thanks :)

[LUCAS2007]

I NOTICED THE READYBOOST COMPATABILITY TWEAK

HKLM (Local Machine)->SOFTWARE->Microsoft->Windows NT->CurrentVersion->EMDgmt

Find your device

Change ReadSpeedKBs to

Change WriteSpeedKBs to

FOR SLOW FLASH DRIVES

i changed the read write to several different values wich does seem to effect performance so the entered value was the actual bench speed of flash drive ,cause of readyboost stutter in games

THE FLASH I USE IS COMPATABLE but not "made for readyboost". THE READ ,WRITE SHOWS LIKE 1673 KBS ,,THE VALUE VISTA ENTERED AS DEFAULT

MY GAMES STUTTER ?

1673 KBS TO MBS = LIKE 1 MBS?

I BENCHED MY DRIVE WITH HD TACH READ IS 24 MBS

SO ENTERED THE VALUE IN REGISTRY FOR READ, WRITE AS 24576 kbs -> 24 mbs

WHICH IS 1024 X 24 = 24576

, 1024 KBS = 1 MBS

Windows ReadyBoost is a great technology, caching things on USB drives to improve system performance, but Windows Vista insists on checking the drives for certain speed requirements before enabling the feature. If you have a USB drive that is just a hair to slow to beat the test, or you want to use an external hard drive (slower speed, loads of cache space), Matt Rajca posts at Channel 9 how you can force Vista to let you use ReadyBoost on an unsupported device, whether it wants to or not :

1. Plug in the device.

2. Open the Readyboost tab on the device properties.

3. Select ?Do not retest this device?

4. Unplug the device

5. Open regedit (start->run->regedit)

6. Expand - HKLM (Local Machine)->SOFTWARE->Microsoft->Windows NT->CurrentVersion->EMDgmt

7. Find your device.

8. Change Device Status to 2

9. Change ReadSpeedKBs to 1000

10. Change WriteSpeedKBs to 1000

11. Plug in the device.

12. Enable Readyboost!!!!

NOTICED THE READYBOOST COMPATABILITY TWEAK

HKLM (Local Machine)->SOFTWARE->Microsoft->Windows NT->CurrentVersion->EMDgmt

Find your device

Change ReadSpeedKBs to

Change WriteSpeedKBs to

FOR SLOW FLASH DRIVES

i changed the read write to several different values wich does seem to effect performance so the entered value was the actual bench speed of flash drive ,cause of readyboost stutter in games

THE FLASH I USE IS COMPATABLE but not "made for readyboost". THE READ ,WRITE SHOWS LIKE 1673 KBS ,,THE VALUE VISTA ENTERED AS DEFAULT

MY GAMES STUTTER ?

1673 KBS TO MBS = LIKE 1 MBS?

I BENCHED MY DRIVE WITH HD TACH READ IS 24 MBS

SO ENTERED THE VALUE IN REGISTRY FOR READ, WRITE AS 24576 kbs -> 24 mbs

WHICH IS 1024 X 24 = 24576

, 1024 KBS = 1 MBS