Is readyboost only useful for slow or low-memory systems?

By Cyber Akuma
in Microsoft (Windows)

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Grand Master

Ricardo Gil

Posted
Posted
The reason I asked was because some have been telling me its only good for low memory systems, however, others have said that your readyboost drive should be as large as the amount of ram you have.

With 8GB of RAM it'll probably just make it slower.

Experienced

Skulltrail-old

Posted
Posted
I have a fairly new laptop with 2Gb ram and there is a clear difference with readyboost in use. There's certainly no downside to trying, is there?!

Agreed.

Pop one in, test it out with some games and other applications you use a lot. See if any thing feels different (loads faster/slower, less/more lag, etc.) If the results aren't what you expected, rip out the external memory and get on with your life.

Experienced

MMaster23

Posted
Posted

As for as official documentation goes, Microsoft doesn't make it clear when to use ReadyBoost (only that it'll help make your pc perform better).

Personally .. I think it's only usefull when you have 1GB of RAM or less in your computer. What ReadyBoost does, it comes between the RAM and the HDD-based swap file. Rather then writing to the god-awefull-slow HDD, it'll write memory-data on the ReadyBoost enabled flash memory making it perform better. As you may know, swap files are primairly made for when the physical RAM is full and more RAM is needed. That is why you'll barely see improvements on 1GB++ systems as they don't need to swap as much as low-memory systems.

Hope that clears it up for some people.

Ps. The minimum amount of RAM required by Windows Vista is 512MB of physical RAM. You won't see Vista systems with less (nor do you want to...)

Mentor

Cyber Akuma

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Hmmm, 8 gig flashdrives aren't that expensive, but I would want to know if its helping, no difference, or even going slower.

Is there any way I can benchmark how vista performs with and without readyboost? Not just benchmark the performance of the USB drive itself.

Grand Master

Kami-

Posted
Posted

ReadyBoost is useful if your trying to do ALOT of things which require huge chunks of memory...

Example:

Open & flick between/use the following

- The entire Adobe Master CS3 suite

- Web Browser

- Crysis

- VM Machines

My RAM doesn't fill up... ;)

Grand Master

+allan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted
As you may know, swap files are primairly made for when the physical RAM is full and more RAM is needed. That is why you'll barely see improvements on 1GB++ systems as they don't need to swap as much as low-memory systems.

That's absolutely not true. You really should understand when and how the swap file is used before trying to explain it to someone else. The swap file is ALWAYS in use regardless of how much ram you have or how "full" the ram is. MS designs their OS's to use virtual memory at all times.

Grand Master

CPressland

Posted
Posted
That's absolutely not true. You really should understand when and how the swap file is used before trying to explain it to someone else. The swap file is ALWAYS in use regardless of how much ram you have or how "full" the ram is. MS designs their OS's to use virtual memory at all times.

Bad design in my opinion, Linux and Mac OS X use all available RAM at all times, after all, thats what it's there for.

Grand Master

.Kompressor

Posted
Posted

well I think the readyboost option works for some people because the USB Flash Drive is fast at Read/Write too. no moving parts like a page file on a regular harddrive. Unless your on SSD. ;)

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
Posted
I have 3 gb's of ram, and I found that ready boost did not help at all. I turned the service off.

Bad idea, I'd re-enable that service. Readyboost controls the "readyboot" service which is used to decrease boot times (using RAM as a cache during boot time, has nothing to do with flash drives, this service should stay enabled.)

Experienced

MMaster23

Posted
Posted
That's absolutely not true. You really should understand when and how the swap file is used before trying to explain it to someone else. The swap file is ALWAYS in use regardless of how much ram you have or how "full" the ram is. MS designs their OS's to use virtual memory at all times.

True and not true .. It is true that all applications use virtual memory however this is mainly to garrantee all apps get enough RAM as the system may not have enough RAM to run everything at the same time. You can quickly test your own theory by turning off the page file (the official Microsoft name for it).

Grand Master

+Tantawi Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted
Bad idea, I'd re-enable that service. Readyboost controls the "readyboot" service which is used to decrease boot times (using RAM as a cache during boot time, has nothing to do with flash drives, this service should stay enabled.)

+1 (Y).

Experienced

TogaForComfort

Posted
Posted

I dont know the working of the page file and RAM mangement, but in pritical terms I have found using a readboot device has made commonly used progams such as firefox and media center launch a hell of a lot quicker.

As mentioned previously, you should give it a try and see what results you get. As seems to be the case with Vista each persons experience with is various functions and features seems to vary wildly.

Veteran

PermaSt0ne

Posted
Posted

ready boost uses an external drive to boost your speeds for low memory systems. the theory is it's faster to use the flash memory than to use the HDD

so we really have 2 issues here:

1) if you are only turning on the service, without plugging in an external thumb drive, then no you won't see an increase and you can turn the service off

2) if you readyboost with an external drive, then yes you should see an increase

but remember, this is for low memory systems. if you have 4GB then, even if you plug in an external drive, you won't see an increase. and those of you who are just turning on the service without plugging anything in are wasting your time

Collaborator

Zanaffer

Posted
Posted
Ps. The minimum amount of RAM required by Windows Vista is 512MB of physical RAM. You won't see Vista systems with less (nor do you want to...)

That's the minimum amount of RAM required for INSTALLATION of Vista. Vista can "run" on less than that. I witnessed this truth during my previous job...

There was an eMachine computer on display with 512MB RAM running Vista basic. The 512MB was on 2 256MB sticks. One of the sticks failed leading to the display model crashing all the time. Management wanted the display model there and did not want to RTV the bad computer, so a stick was placed on order from eMachines under warranty. So, the defective stick was removed and the display model set back up while we were waiting on the RAM to arrive, and Vista still "ran" on 256MB. Now, actually trying to USE a vista machine with less than 512MB RAM would make me want to shoot myself, or better yet, the computer's owner.

Back on topic now. I had an HP micro-tower that I use primarily for outputting video onto a highdef TV while streaming it from my other computer on the network. It has 1.5GB RAM. I was using a 2GB flash drive for readyboost on it at the time, and I found absolutely zero improvement, nor did I find it to slow things down either. Eventually, I just unplugged the flash drive. Now, the computer runs Ubuntu, just because I found Compiz to be more fun than Aero. For readyboost, I think it's really only good for the sub-1GB machines. The problem though, is that for readyboost to be worthwhile, a fast flash drive needs to be used, and the cheap $5 1GB flash drives generally don't cut it, and if you're going to spend $10 or more on a flash drive, you might as well buy RAM.

Collaborator

Mark Schieldrop

Posted
Posted

One thing to note about readyboost: it can be useful if you hibernate your machine. If you have 4GB memory and a 4GB readyboost stick, it will put the hibernation file on the stick which can dramatically improve resume times.

And, as others have said, the readyboost service also controlls the readyboot service. As a result, it shouldn't be disabled. Unless, of course, you want slower boot times and no boot optimization.

Disabling the service will not improve performance either.

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