Speed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoost
Windows Vista includes a new feature called ReadyBoost that lets you plug in a flash memory stick or SD card to store commonly used files for quicker access than off the hard drive.
Turning this feature on couldn’t be simpler. Just stick the flash drive, SD card, or whatever flash device you want into your computer. You’ll see this dialog pop up:
Click the “Speed up my system” link, and you’ll be taken to the ReadyBoost panel for the flash drive:
Just select Use this device, and set the amount of space you want to use. Windows will create what is essentially a paging file on the disk, and will use it for faster access.
Note that this will only work with USB 2.0 devices or SD cards.
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Hi. I’ve tried using two different USB 2.0 flash memory sticks to boost the system but each time vista tells me that the drive doesn’t have the performance characteristics to allow it to do this. Both drives are USB 2.0 and I have tried them in different USB ports. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.
Ben, I’d make sure your motherboard supports 2.0, and your bios has USB 2.0 enabled. It’s possible for a 2.0 board to have 1.0 slots, so make sure you are using the correct slot.
Make sure that the flash drives you are using are rated at the high-speed category. I do not think that full speed is sufficient.
This won’t work with all flash drives and SD cards. They have to be of the high-speed variety. Look for the ReadyBoost certification when you’re shopping for cards. None of the bargain basement cards are fast enough for ReadyBoost.
Thanks, I appreciate the help. The motherboard does support USB2 and the bios Is USB 2 enabled. The memory sticks I’ve tried are all high speed. Still does not work with ready boost however. do you have any other suggestions I could use?
Thanks.
Are these USB Drives formatted with NTFS. If not then format the same with NTFS and then try.
Be carefull when buying SD cards because all the cards from PNY say “ready for windows vista upgrade” and that DOES NOT mean that it will work with readyboost. I just bought one and assumed since it said “windows vista upgrade” on the front that it would work with readyboost and it doesn’t. So I’m a little ticked at PNY right now because that is very deceiving.
I have the same problem. I formatted my 2GB SD card as NTFS, but Windows Vista still says, “This device does not have the required performance characteristics for use in speeding up your system.” How fast is high-speed? The specs for my card say it has a transfer speed of 10MB per second.
If you google around at hardware tech review sites, you’ll see that you dont want to use readyboost. USB RAM is not faster than system RAM. You are better off buying more internal system RAM if system speed is a concern.
You must buy a readyboost certified device for it to work, but i came across a webpage which my link is broken to that shows you how to do some registry tweaking that allows you to use any USB thumbdrive even if it is not readyboost certified, not as good but still efficient if you have one lying around. I use readyboost all the time and it helps a lot, but it is no substitute for system memory but when i play games or doing something that is heavy load i pop it in and it helps
I’m using a USB 2.0 1GB stick I purchased way back in late 2004 and it works perfectly as readyboost device. I agree there is no substitute for buying more system memory although I’ve found since upgrading to 2GB, it doesn’t make that much of a difference, in speed just the number of applications you have open.
I’ve got a VoyagerGT flash drive. I looked at the Readyboost Operational logs in Event Viewer. The logs contain no speed results even though my flash drive is Readyboost enabled and functional. How can I manually generate a Readyboost speed test in Vista?
Hi,
I have a 2gb pen drive, I want to know If i use this for ready to boost, does this mean i have to keep the pen drive plugged everytime i use the computer or i can remove it and still use the pc
If i want to later use it to store files can I safely format it?
or i need to transfer back everything to the pc?
To Todd and all others, you have no one to blame but yourself. “Vista certified” or “Ready for Vista Upgrade” is just a gimmick that some hardware (that are vista compatible regardless) brands use to hype up their product. All of the following are designed specifically for ReadyBoost ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/.....p;name=Yes ). Stop blaming companies just because you like to jump to conclusions.
To everyone, I had the same problem, Vista said it wasn’t fast enough, but then i clicked “retest” and it worked fine.
Dude it sucks to have one that dus not work since i have onley tried 5 diferent brands and thay work fine for me. Tho i am right now just going to try a sd card for the first time home it works since its a hc 150x
I have used Ready Boost on 2 different laptops. One with 1GB of RAM and one with 2GB’S of RAM. I used flash drives (2GB and 4GB) that were specified as “Ready Boost enabled”. My experience is that there is hardly any noticeable performance advantage. In some regard, it is just the opposite. E.g. restarting Vista seems to take longer. It apparently makes some setups on the flash drive that takes extra time. I have taken it out and bought 2 GB’s of RAM for the 1GB laptop instead. That works a lot better and at $60 for the extra 2 x 1GB Dimms it is only slightly more expensive than a high speed flash drive of 2 GB’s.
SDHC or MMC + (Plus) can be used for ReadyBoost
Hi everyone does anyone know if you can have two memories using ReadyBoost
************** RE-FORMAT THE DRIVE USING NTFS FORMAT (4k) ********************
The factory usually formats the flash drive as FAT32. FAT is a good name for this format beause it’s slow and eats alot of bus time. NTFS is the way to go!! It requires a little more Flash memory for this format (35 Meg on a 4 Gig flash as oppossed to 4K for FAT32, but it’s well worth it. I’ve only been able to NTFS format a Flash Drive on a Vista machine, but it is AMAZING !! Your new Drive is now quicker than ever for both XP and Vista…..and it’s now fast enough to try it as “Speed Boost” on Vista. Don’t have much info on perfomance of that function yet, but……….now, you have something you can really call FLASH !!
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that is all a vista ready flash drive is it is no special rocket scientists thing
According to Kingston Memory tech support, dont reformat the USB flash drive. FAT 32 is just fine for Readyboost.
Well I work for ATI Canada and with a majority of the good flash drives that are produced for Vista ready boost they are flashed NTFS your tech should now that fat 32 doesn’t work well with NTFS FAT is slow to slow for ready boost
I have found latley that people have hade trouble with ready boost not working with suported devices even. so i did some studeys and test and found that certin usb ports are varrey slow and that is wi readybost will say the device duz not have the performance. A lot of that is du to drivers that even tho sighned for windows the chipset on the usb controller actuley is not fulley compatable. you get this on a lot of systems that have ben upgraded frome windows xp to vista. Now thare is a way to force readyboost to work but it usley slows your system.
You can alwez buy a secend small harddrive install it in your system and use it as a page file drive onley and that is actuley faster then readyboost.
Yo Kevin, no offense, but it is hard to take technical advice from a guy with the writing skills of a 2nd grader.
If anyone still cares, I ran a checkdisk (ticked fix errors etc) on my 2GB flashdrive that apparently did not have the speed for readyboost – after the checkdisk I retested it and it was good to go?
Yesterday I bought a 4 gb flash that was marked as Ready Boost ready. I plugged it in, it installed the driver and then I selected “Speed up my system” on the auto start dialogue box. It then brought up the ReadyBoost tab from the device properties. It had two selections (use this device or don’t use this device) along with a slider to indicate how much of the drive I wanted to use. I left the defaul setting (use all of it). It seemed to work fine. I could see the led on the flash drive flicker along as I used the system.
This morning I noticed that the drive came formatted for FAT32. After reading the help file on partition formatting, I converted it to NTFS and restarted my system. Then I noticed that the led was simply holding steady. I went in and looked at the properties and and found the message “This device does not have the required performance characteristics for use in speeding up your system”.
I’ve tried everything, including a system restore and starting over, reformatting back to FAT32, re-testing, etc. but nothing changes. Vista just doesn’t think the drive is fast enough anymore.
I think it has something to do with the formatting itself but am not willing to spend another $20+ finding out. I’d be interested in the link that an earlier writer referred to that gave a Registry tweak to force the use.
Well, folks. I reformatted my 4 GB drive (which had been working just fine for ReadyBoost) in an attempt to expunge the dreaded U3 System software (SanDisk Cruzer, if you must know). Reformatted it as FAT32, and since then it has NOT functioned for ReadyBoost at all. Too boot it acts as if the drive is “too full” to accept any ReadyBoost dedicated space. I’m in the process of reformatting it as NTFS to see if it helps…I’ll let ya know what happens after that.
Well, the short-term follow-up is that after reformatting the drive as NTFS and plugging it back in, it immediately recognized the drive and Vista presented me the option of using the drive to “speed up my system”. So, I’ve used 3700 MB of it for ReadyBoost and will try something creative like opening up a zillion pdf files at once to see how it handles it.
OK. Third and (I expect) final post about format of the drive and ReadyBoost… for those of you in need of a recap, I had a 4 GB SandDisk Cruzer that had done wonders to speed up my Vista laptop, but had reformatted it as FAT32 in order to try and get rid of the annoying software that came with it. Once that happened it ceased to function for ReadyBoost (drive light stayed on all the time; Vista showed it as being too full to allow any dedicated space for ReadyBoost, adn the system was its usual slow dog self). I just reformatted it as NTFS (full format, not the Quick formatting option) and a) it was immediately recognized as Ready Boost ready when I plugged it back in, b) the light now flickers when it’s being accessed, and my system is faster than a speeding bullet once again. The empirical test was to open 27 PDF files at once. Took less than 30 seconds to open and display them all simultaneously, and 7-8 seconds to close all those PDF windows. This is pretty much how it functioned when I first started using it, and the same test. Shazaam! I’d say that FAT32 is “BAD” for ReadyBoost, and NTFS is “GOOD”. Hope this helps someone out there!
FYI for everyone, if you use a SD card, reformat it to NTFS and select compress drive, this will allow for using almost any SD for ready boost.
Why has this not been commonly made to registered users. My 4 year old LG notebook ran faster with the same amount of ram.
HBG, I am not sure why it is not known, I actually just figured it out playing around. Sure hope this helps, after all this forum has helped me ALOT with my vista issues. Have a great day!
This forum helped me with the readyboost. I got the same messege saying that device doesnt have the required performence for readyboost. I ran a checkdisk (ticked fix errors) like Jake have mentioned above and retested my 8gb drive. It worked out fine.
i am using kingston 16gb pendrive , is it possible to do the operation(ready boost) using this pendrive . I have tried many times buts its responding as though it is not supported .
How can i format a pendrive to make it NTFS format
I ‘ve read that if you’re using “Readyboost” then you need to enable “Superfetch” in VISTA services as well … is this true?
FYI – I ended up on this post because I was looking for answers to why my Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 1GB RAM did not meet the specs for readyboost, when it clearly should have based on the manufacturers specs. The steps I took to make it work: 1) reformat to NTFS 2) select “Compress this drive”. After doing both, I switched to the readboost tab and it was now acceptable for readyboost.
Test your Readyboost flash drive speed. Paste the first command into Start Menu Run box to test read speed. The second command tests write speed. Replace E with the drive letter of your flash drive.
cmd /k winsat disk –read –ran –ransize 4096 –drive E
cmd /k winsat disk –write –ran –ransize 524288 –drive E
I had the some problem with a Kingston 2 GB. I tried formatting with ntfs, checkdisk, and nothing worked. I was about to give up until I compressed the drive and BINGO. Is that weird? By the way mrogi, I tried your commands and the results were wiped off the screen. How can I get them to stay up there until I’ve read them. Also what’s good and what’s bad? In other words if I had the results what would I do with them?
Almost the same as Nick Prignano’s.
Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 2GB RAM did not meet the specs for readyboost, The steps I took to make it work: 1) reformat to NTFS 2) select “Compress this drive”. After doing both, I switched to the readboost tab and it was now acceptable for readyboost.
I found this page after SanDisk tech support advised returning my Cruzer to the store. Readyboost was working before I called them but I had another problem. Their solution was to reformat the flashdrive. After doing so, my other problem was solved but Readyboost gave an error about the device being below the min performance specs. The tech decided that the device must be defictive.
Or Not.
The simple solution was to hit “retest.” It took two tries.
For the techies out there who like nitty gritty details:
My computer was freezing at a black screen whenever I rebooted with the SanDisk Cruzer (8MB) in the USB slot. I now know my BIOS was set to default boot from a flash drive. I suspect it was barfing everytime it hit the U3 LaunchPad autorun, which was not working properly (something about a drive letter assignment) I tried removing the U3 software to no avail. Their website says I needed to have U3 LaunchPad running in order to uninstall. Buh? I disabled all external drives and reassigned the drive to a new letter that could not possibly be in use, but no luck.
I called SanDisk who provided a link to a U3 utility that deleted the software and reformatted the drive. After using the reformat utility, Readyboost would not work. The tech had me reformat the drive manually. Still no luck. He adviced I return the defective device.
Moral of the story? U3 Launchpad and its associated virtual CD drive suck. Readyboost rocks. I’m currently reformatting to NTFS. Thanks to all of you for sharing your experience and saving me the nightmare of returning a perfectly good device to the (Dell online) store.
I had formatted FAT32 (default)
specifications”
Update on my previous post. Sorry for the long response earlier but hopefully it’s faster to read than it is to get stuck on the phone with tech support for an hour only to be told to return the device.
I reformatted from FAT32 to NTFS. I again got the error about my device not meeting the min specs for ReadyBoost. (I know this was false according to the manufacturer and I had ReadyBoost running previously) I hit “retest” x 2 and no luck. I closed all running programs, waited and hit “retest” It worked.
So…. If you KNOW that your device should run ReadyBoost and does not, try retesting when your computer is quiet (kill unneeded processes if necessary)
My laptop is already maxed out with 4 gb ram installed. Can ReadyBoost still help?
No RS, it won’t help you at all.
Thanks Brian
I am using Kingston 4GB (Class 4) SDHC with my fujitsu S6510. Initially, Vista rejects using this SD for ready boost, but soon after I reformatted the card and set the drive to be compressed it then worked. I do believe other SDHC can adopt Brian’s procedure to pass ready boost test.
Thanks for this tip. it works great. I am pulling my hair out try to speed up my pc and hope this will last a bit.
Hi Folks,
Was having similar problems as the rest of you. Have a Sandisk Mini SSD (8GB) card that I had placed in the card reader of my HP HDX9010NR running Vista Ultimate.
ReadyBoost worked great until I screwed something up (can’t remember what….reformatted to Fat32 maybe). The ReadyBoost tab woudln’t even show up when I clicked Properties.
So, How’d I fix it? Took advice from above and did a Full Reformat using NTFS at 4,096 (without compressing it). Once done, I took the card out, waited a few minutes, reinserted the card and whoallah!!! The Autoplay menu came up allowing me to “Speed up my system”.
At first the readyboost tab said it wouldn’t work so I hit Test Again (maybe even twice) and now it works like a charm.
There ya go. Hope it helps. Glad I found this page. I never would’ve thought to reformat to NTFS to get it working.
Thanks and good luck everyone!
i set up the readyboost and noting is happing its still slow
added 2 GB of ram with a flash drive but I had to delete mostly everything that was on it to get it to work. I don’t see a whole lot of difference between 6 and 8 GB
Reformatting and compression worked. Yeah! I have a Kingston Data Traveler 4GB. Thanks.
Hitting “Test” over and over worked! Thanks Jesse. I also tried NTFS formatting just before trying hitting test over and over again too.
Ready boost is for those without much ram 512 or less, no point other wise and if you have 512 ram, add more. That simple for the cost of a readyboost usb stick you can have more ram. If you don’t know how to add more ram, go to crucials website and use there system scanner. Even microsoft admitted that ready boost was at most useless.