Very nice post. Definitely worth reading. But explain one thing, I have never used ReadyBoost, cause I have 4gb ram, which is more than sufficient for now, as it never gets used all 4gb's. My pagefile is stored on my G:\ drive, which is one of the seperate drives in my system. It has been long known that disabling pagefile will slow a system down, and putting it on a seperate drive will increase performance very slightly. But didn't know readyboost will boost performance, even when u have enough memory available ? Normally that feature is meant for systems running less memory (say 1 or 2 gigs), as a way to expand their installed ram. Correct me if I'm wrong... So if I were to enable readyboost with a usb or flash disk, I would see a performance boost ? Will have to test that myself before I believe it...
i believe that those who have 2GB of system memory (or less) can experience quite a performace increase by using a 4GB USB for readyboost. In my experience, adding another 2GB of system memory for a total of 4GB (instead of using a USB with 4GB for readyboost) increased performance compared to ready boost.
Exactly my point. Having 4gb ram or more, readyboost is virtually unnecessary unless in need of more than your 4gigs (say in professional video rendering software), where as a performance boost, I just don't think it'll happen. Using more ram will boost perfprmance more than using readyboost instead.
What are the performance gains you hope to acheive? Also, does not Windows 7 already do something similar to ReadyBoost by caching frequently used data in free memory? Windows 7 seems very intelligent and learns by experience which data should be cached or not.
Yep, you are referring to SUPERFTECH. Does virtually the same thing, so still, why readyboost when having 4gb or more ? the memory is allready cached...
before (pagefile on system partition,no readyboost) : and after (pagefile moved to an other drive, and 4 GB readyboost) :
The performance gains I expect will be around 5-10%, but I won't have anyway of knowing until I build the system. I plan on writing a massive multi-page article with tons of pictures to illustrate the process. Stay tuned! Your second question refers to Superfetch, which is an updated version of Windows XP's prefetch. Basically, it preloads applications you use frequently into RAM directly. In Windows 7, it is less aggressive than in Vista, which means that Superfetch will quickly make room for new applications when you launch them, instead of wrestling the new programs for control. Superfetch's performance is directly tied to how much RAM you have: the more, the merrier. However, upgrading your current RAM to 16GB can be over $200, and for most people, a $25 flash drive or SD card for Readyboost is all the performance they can afford. Edit: For any programmers out there, I have a great idea for a performance enhancer for Windows 7. The tool would add a context menu when you right-clicked on an application, which would read "Add Program X to Superfetch" and/or "Add Program X to Readyboost". An example would be for Google Earth. I hardly ever use the program, but when I do, it's because I need directions in a hurry, and I want it to load Now! Unfortunately, Windows 7 does not realize the importance of this program to me, and only notices that I don't use it very often, in which case, it does not add it to Superfetch or Readyboost caches.
You're about to waste your money. Instead of these two exotic parts - they'll be quite expensive if you buy the quality needed - you should think about an SSD. An 25$ thumbrive will probably decrease the overall performance.
The sole purpose of readyboost is to provide a place for very randomised read and writes of small pages, something a mechanical disk is very slow at due to the need for the heads to move etc. If you use a flash disk for the page file, readyboost becomes redundant as your computer can now use the pagefile. Not to mention you'll recover the fraction of cpu cycles it takes to encrypt the readyboost data. The faster the drive for the pagefile, the better the performance (naturally). The problem I see with current SSD's and flash is the guaranteed read/write cycles and expected use.
An SSD large enough for my purposes would cost over $1200. Also, the MLC types that I might be able to afford have cell lifetimes of around 10,000 writes. I do 10,000 writes in a day. The SD card I used in my testing was $22. Well worth the investment. The fundamental difference between the pagefile and Readyboost is that Readyboost is smart- it learns and improves the way it stores data, to speed up your system. The pagefile is just a dumb scrapboard, where excess data from RAM is dumped when it becomes overloaded. I plan on doing another series of tests when my new computer parts arrive, and I will demonostrate the difference between placing your pagefile on a HDD and a SSD. If I'm wrong, then you can have my 4GB SSD drive, as I won't be needing it.
Explain to me how your ram can become 'overloaded'. Windows never uses my full 4gb. 2gb at most, when having lots of apps opened and running.
It's simple guys, for those who have excess of RAM (4GB and higher) the advantages gained by using Page File on SSD or UFD and Readyboost are negligible, why? For Paging File: Most of your data are already in the RAM. Page file is used marginally. Putting it on another drive is still better option. For ReadyBoost: Most of your cashed data are also already in RAM, all you gain from Readyboost is that your cached data are retained throughout reboots, unlike RAM, where cache is rebuilt with every reboot. Also, Readyboost was originally invented to help mostly Laptop & old PC's users who may not have enough room for RAM upgrade.
Yes, you're right. @A30N I guess you'll waste your money for such rig. if you are low on budget, you could buy a low-cost Intel 40GB SSD drive for your OS and SATA drive(s) for your data, and you'll gain much better performance.
Just for the hell of it i went and do some tests in loading time in World of Warcraft with and without ReadyBoost. I picked World of Warcraft because im using lots of mods with it (~100) and all those are made from multiple small files, where readyboost suppose to shine. Mods directory is ~6300 files inside ~2100 directorys and its about 70MB in size. There is mod that mesures loading time and i was looking on ONLY that data. My specs are following: Q9450 @ 3.6ghz 6gb ram 2x seagate 500GB disk in raid0 4gb swap file on non OS partition 4gb usb key that i was using for readyboost Results are EXACTLY the same with or without readyboost. First load after reboot takes huge ~46sec. Then superfetch kicks in and every next load will take only around 7.20sec. If you want to reload only UI (mods) from inside game it will take about 4.30sec. So bottom line is i was hoping that readyboost will help with inital loading times, since it suppose to save cache and not recreate it everytime, but it doesnt. So my judgment is that is compleatly useless on any deacent PC, i cannot imagine readyboost have any effect on i7/i9 with ddr3, since its already doesnt have any effect on my system...