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I'm curious to know if readyboost is really worth it. I'm running a machine with 1gb of memory, which ran well in XP but isn't that great since I upgraded to Vista.
I'm wondering if readyboost is really worth it or if I should upgrade the memory in this machine instead.
Thanks!
ansi92,
ReadyBoost does really work. On our 2, 2GB Vistas, we noticed boot time reduced by nearly half. The same can be said for shutdown. We bought Kingston GTMs because they're stubby and hard to damage (about $20 for 2GB though you may need only 1GB) http://www.amazon.com/Kingston.....38;sr=1-20
That being said, all I've read clearly states that ReadyBoost is not as good as a replacement for additional RAM if you an afford it.
I'm not really worried about startup or shutdown times, because I usually leave my machine running all the time, but that's good to know at least.
I have an SD card, is it possible to use the SD card instead of a USB flash drive? Seems like it should be, since I think SD cards are faster.
It will depend on the speed of the SD card. I'm sure there are plenty that will work, but I tried one I had on hand that didn't meet the requirements. I'm pretty sure Vista will let you use an SD card for ReadyBoost (it let me test it for that purpose anyway) so give it a shot.
As to whether or not it works: I haven't done any formal testing, but I think my computer feels a bit snappier when I'm running several apps simultaneously. Could be total placebo effect, but that's my impression.
Found on an Apacer seller page:
"Via Windows ReadyBoost, Windows Vista can increase performances in correlation with a USB key. Vista will use the USB Drive to compensate for memory shortage or to simply boost speed, by creating a copy of the virtual memory on 230 MB free space on the flash drive.
Vista does not increase the system RAM on the machine, but through ReadyBoost, it stores information that is repeatedly accessed by the memory manager. In this context, the operating system accesses the data stored on the flash drive instead of randomly accessing the disk. Vista features like data indexing, the Aero graphical user interface and the desktop window manager tend to take up extra memory. ReadyBoost balances functionality and memory management.
HT203 ReadyBoost testing:
Test Criteria:
- Calculate system response time (seconds) with/without ReadyBoost enabled while first execute each program from the beginning to ready for working.
- The difference between the tests smaller or equal than 2 seconds were treated as reasonable, such values were neglected.
- The numbers in brackets are the performance improved rate.
Test Environment:
CPU: AMD Sempron 2500+, 1.4GHz
RAM: DDR400 256MB
HDD: Segate 20GB 7200rpm (Ultra ATA 100)
Graphic: nVidia GeForce 6100 (max. 64MB)
O/S: Windows Vista RC1 5600
Application RAM only With HA202
Acrobat 6.0 ............ 31.1 sec. ..... 17.3 sec.(44.4% improved)
Office Word 2003 ....... 5.6 sec. ...... 3.6 sec. (35.7% improved)
Office Excel 2003 ...... 8.5 sec. ...... 6.4 sec. (24.7% improved)
Office PowerPoint 2003 . 4.1 sec. ...... 3 sec. (26.8% improved)
Office Outlook 2003 ... 13.4 sec. ..... 11.6 sec. (13.4% improved)
Internet Explorer 7 ... 18.2 sec. ..... 13.7 sec. (24.7% improved)
Photoshop CS 8 ........ 46.5 sec. ..... 37.8 sec. (18.7% improved)"
Those test are interesting, especially because the Hardware Secrets test you linked to seem to show the exact opposite - a drop in performance. I wonder if ReadyBoost was implemented differently in RC1 (used for those first tests) than in the RTM? And if so, I wonder if this is something to be fixed in the rumored SP1...
My thought is that the system specs on the seller's page are suspiciously poor. If I am correct, ReadyBoost is only available on Windows Vista, and Windows Vista is relatively new. There is just no way that the test computer used could be up to snuff for those tests. My uninformed conclusion is that it benefits computers with small amounts of memory, but it may be possible that the computer would choose to put the information on the flash drive instead of the RAM, which would obviously slow things down. That said, I have not tested it myself, and others on this site have. Maybe one of gurus can figure out a way to run a benchmark on a system with more than 256MB RAM.
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