Windows Readyboost

[Eagle Creek]

Hi!

Anyone here got experience with Vista's feature 'Readyboost'? It's supposed to speed up your PC since it uses a fast USB stick over a slow hard drive when pagefile information needs to be accessed.

I like the idea behind it but..
1. I don't experience any difference, not even when I'm stressing my computer.
2. My USB sticks are randomly qualified and disqualified as "Readyboost Capable". Even when I've used a certain stick on a certain PC, there's a change the next time I connect (or only reboot the machine) Vista tells me the stick is not RB capable.
3. Microsoft says you should be able to pull out the stick any time without data loss. They say that all the data on the stick is also being backed up on the hard disk. But if it's writing to two locations you would think it could cause performance loss instead of profit.

[RAD]

There are numerous ReadyBosst performance analyses on the web.
I tried it, and ended up deciding there was no improvement with my 4 Gig of Ram. In fact, there were some odd instability issues that I suspect it was causing, because they disappeared when I quit using it. I tried really fast SD cards and compactr flash cards also (266X).

A synopsis of the reviews:
If you have less than 1 Gig of memory, it will significantly help. But the benefit falls off rapidly until it is just barely measureable with 2 Gigs.

I thing the best way to get higher performance is just load up on RAM. More RAM ALWAY helps !

Then, a faster processor, video card, and faster hard drives. ReadyBoost seems almost irrelevent to real performance increases.

[Eagle Creek]

Interesting, just what I thought.
I know there are several analyses available but the thing is that they also contradict each other.

I've tried ReadyBoost on Vista machines with 1 GB, 2 GB and 4 GB and my experiences are the same.
And if it works as explained, it should also work on a 2 GB machine heavy loaded. The pagefile will always be used (when you don't disable it of course).

[lucas1985]

In most cases, ReadyBoost doesn't work.

[InfinityAz]

Eagle Creek,

I've been using ReadyBoost since I built my machine and it seems to make it snappier (may be psychological, who knows).

Check out:

1. Ask the Peformance Team for a good article on SuperFetch and ReadyBoost (http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx).

2. Grant Gibson's ReadyBoost Compatability Chart (http://www.grantgibson.co.uk/misc/readyboost/)

[AKAJohnDoe]

I left prefetch and superfetch on (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2493720&perpage=1&page=11), but turned off readyboost (http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm).

[midway40]

The thing with turning off ReadyBoost is that you also turn off ReadyBoot (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc162480.aspx) as well.

[AKAJohnDoe]

Apparently not completely.

I have a C:\Windows\Prefetch\ReadyBoot folder, created when I booted up this AM, that contains a 12,800KB file, ReadyBoot.etl, that was modified less than a half hour ago.

[midway40]

I have read on several other forums that this happens when you disable ReadyBoost. In that article I linked to it mentions this:

-{ Quote: "After every boot, the ReadyBoost service (the same service that implements the ReadyBoost feature just described) uses idle CPU time to calculate a boot-time caching plan for the next boot [for ReadyBoot]." }-

[AKAJohnDoe]

-{ Quote: "I have read on several other forums that this happens when you disable ReadyBoost. In that article I linked to it mentions this:" }-
I expect that it happens even when ReadyBoost is enabled.

[RAD]

What does "disable Readyboost" imply ?

I haven't done anything to "disable" it, but I am not using it with any removable media.

[Eagle Creek]

Recent article from the guys at PCPitstop: http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2008/05/14/readyboost-schmeddyboost/.