Internal ReadyBoost USB Drive

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EverythingUSB spotted a new 2GB ReadyBoost memory drive that plugs straight into a free USB pin header on your motherboard and costs only $15. Follow the link to see a picture of the device.

ReadyBoost is one of the several things you can do to speed up Vista if you are stuck with 1GB RAM. You'll need to plug in a 2GB or larger flash drive for optimal results, but you lose a precious USB port as well. Now, what if you have an extra USB header available inside your rig.
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This thing has been out for a long time, before vista too for those people wanting to run an alternative setup on a USB.

This is pretty nifty, I'll snatch this up.
 
There are also quite a number of PCI USB 2.0 controllers that have regular internal USB ports that you could use for this kind of thing.
 
Mark_Warner said:
There are also quite a number of PCI USB 2.0 controllers that have regular internal USB ports that you could use for this kind of thing.
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True. Nice thing with the one steve posted is you don't need anything elce.

Come to think about it I think I have an internal port on a usb controller though. Still seems like a good device.
 
I've been playing Readyboost n00b on an XPS M1210 w/ 1.5GB of RAM and Vista x86 Ultimate. The drive used, a 2GB Lexar Lighting, scores 35MB STR and .9ms RAT in HD Tach. It's not IO meter, but the drives def snappier than all I've used before it. Nonetheless, I notice NO difference in day to day internet, encoding, etc. Is this tech truly useless? :confused:
 
isnt flash ram like incredibly slow?

wouldent it make more sence to just make a bigger pagefile? :confused:
 
I'd like to see some benches done with this. Anyone have one and know the WinSAT commands?
 
this is intersting. But a PC has so mansy usb you can just plug it in the back.

I just got Vista and looking forward to installing and looking to see the difference with readyboost.
 
MC FLMJIG said:
this is intersting. But a PC has so mansy usb you can just plug it in the back.

I just got Vista and looking forward to installing and looking to see the difference with readyboost.
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You could but this way the end user is not going to be unplugging it.
 
FLECOM said:
isnt flash ram like incredibly slow?

wouldent it make more sence to just make a bigger pagefile? :confused:
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The purpose of ready boost is for caching pieces of data (typically application data) which benefit from quick seek times. When it comes to seek time, a HDD is a turtle compared to the flash disk which is the rabbit.
 
Jodiuh said:
I've been playing Readyboost n00b on an XPS M1210 w/ 1.5GB of RAM and Vista x86 Ultimate. The drive used, a 2GB Lexar Lighting, scores 35MB STR and .9ms RAT in HD Tach. It's not IO meter, but the drives def snappier than all I've used before it. Nonetheless, I notice NO difference in day to day internet, encoding, etc. Is this tech truly useless? :confused:
Click to expand...


Readyboost does NOT act like memory. It is simply for speeding up the starting of applications and overall snappiness of the OS. It does not function as normal memory at all and will not help with memory intensive tasks.
 
Grentz said:
Readyboost does NOT act like memory. It is simply for speeding up the starting of applications and overall snappiness of the OS. It does not function as normal memory at all and will not help with memory intensive tasks.
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MC FLMJIG said:
Fro mwhat I've read it helps in games and certain apps.
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That's why I mentioned it helped w/ neither of those things. Windows did not start up faster, apps (internet, office) did not start up faster, progs (games/encoding) were not faster...nothing felt different at all. This is over a few days from a fresh windows install, so it had plenty of time to superfetch my apps of choice.
 
I've seen a relatively small boost for my PS use; mainly when running large batch action scripts. But other than that, for gaming and especially on a rig with 2 gig (soon to be 4) I don't think readyboost will change much.

Now toss a 4giger(USB) in a laptop with 512mb-1gb and I'm sure you'll notice some quicker load times, cycle times, etc.
 
FLECOM said:
isnt flash ram like incredibly slow?

wouldent it make more sence to just make a bigger pagefile? :confused:
Click to expand...

readyboost is aimed at users who have in the 512 range of ram, and really dont want to upgrade, or dont have any idea how. its alot easier to tell grandma to go to walmart and buy a $15 flash drive than it is to tell her to buy some ram,
 
Jodiuh said:
That's why I mentioned it helped w/ neither of those things. Windows did not start up faster, apps (internet, office) did not start up faster, progs (games/encoding) were not faster...nothing felt different at all. This is over a few days from a fresh windows install, so it had plenty of time to superfetch my apps of choice.
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:( thanks for the heads up
 
FLECOM said:
isnt flash ram like incredibly slow?

wouldent it make more sence to just make a bigger pagefile? :confused:
Click to expand...

Access times on flash ram are much faster than on a hdd.
So, swappable data (smaller chunks) will better benefit from the usb drives.

At least, this is how it was explained to me when I went to the seminar for 6 hours that bascially covered this for 4 hours of the time.

It's basically a way, functionally, to add more cache memory to a system that can work between the cpu, main memory, and on the other side, disk.

I am running readyboost with no swap file, and when I'm working on something, like, say, searching a database, it seems much quicker. I am sure, however, that if I wanted to copy a 90GB file from one harddrive to another, it'd not do me much good.
 
Grentz said:
Readyboost does NOT act like memory. It is simply for speeding up the starting of applications and overall snappiness of the OS. It does not function as normal memory at all and will not help with memory intensive tasks.
Click to expand...


Technically correct, and technically incorrect. It functions like cache. Cache is usually made up of memory. No, it wont' make a 2GB Vista system show 6GB ram when you plug in a 4gb module...

but the effects on the "feel" of responsiveness is not something someone who has used a GOOD readyboost drive will be able to play off.
 
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