A few ReadyBoost question

[PandaBearz]

I've been looking on Google, multiple tech review websites, and YouTube to see if ReadyBoost drastically increased responsiveness and was faster than hard drive cache / RAM (I don't fully understand which it is)

Anyways, I have an old 16GB USB Flash Drive from college, along with a 32GB SD card.. and they're just sitting their. I recently built my computer and installed a media card reader (internal) and placed my 32GB SD in along with my USB from one of the back ports (to stay hidden). Anyways, I did this so I could store pictures on one and music on the other. But, now that I have a brand new computer with a 1TB 7200RPM HDD, I have more than enough space to store everything quickly on the hard drive.. and was considering selling my SD/USB on eBay but noticed I'd only get like 5 dollars each. So, since this is a brand new computer here are the specs:

1TB 7200RPM 16MB Cache
AMD Phenom II X6 1075T @ 3.0GHz - 3.5GHz Turbo, 3MB L2 6MB L3
Diamond HD 5870
6GB DDR3 RAM 1333MHz

Would I benefit from ReadyBoost at all? I can only find benchmarks on Pentium 4 systems and older..

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Thanks in advanced.

 

[geofelt]

Readyboost is much misunderstood, and is unlikely to help you much.

Readyboost relies on the premise that small reads can be done faster on a flash drive that has much less latency than a hard drive.

You can ready boost if your boost drive is fast enough. Windows will test the speed.

If the device qualifies, readyboost will monitor your activity, and create a list of modules that can load faster from the boost drive than the hard drive.
This list will be loaded onto the boost drive at startup, and kept there across restarts.

The reason you don't get much benefit is that the list will include only small modules that load quickly, making the benefit minimal.

It totally goes away if you use a SSD.

I suggest you convert your 32gb thumb drive to a backup drive for your pictures.

 

[PandaBearz]

I was pretty sure that it was hard drive cache.. I knew it couldn't be RAM, isn't fast enough. Well, I guess I'll just leave the SD card in and backup important information (configs, music, pictures). You are telling me that I shouldn't even bother using it right? I figured that because everyone who was using it was still running on Pentium 4s and ~1GB of DDR1 RAM. So, 6GB DDR3 1333MHz and a 1TB 7200RPM wouldn't benefit at all from ReadyBoost? If there is a responsiveness increase, could someone tell me what the difference would be using examples?

 

[PandaBearz]

Best answer selected by PandaBearz.

 

[geofelt]

I was pretty sure that it was hard drive cache.. I knew it couldn't be RAM, isn't fast enough. Well, I guess I'll just leave the SD card in and backup important information (configs, music, pictures). You are telling me that I shouldn't even bother using it right? I figured that because everyone who was using it was still running on Pentium 4s and ~1GB of DDR1 RAM. So, 6GB DDR3 1333MHz and a 1TB 7200RPM wouldn't benefit at all from ReadyBoost? If there is a responsiveness increase, could someone tell me what the difference would be using examples?

I tried it some time back. At the time, I researched it a lot, and learned quite a few details.
The misconception was that it could substitute for ram; it does not.

It is easy enough to try, but I doubt that you will notice anything.

 

[tilstad]

Yes, readyboost is mistunderstood alright.

Firstly, there is 2 similar, but different technologies thats being mentioned by geofelt here. What he is reffering to is ReadyDRIVE, not ReadyBOOST. Those are 2 distingtly different technologies.

If calling it ReadyDRIVE, then yes, what is written by geofelt is correct. The readydrive technology "Pins" certain programs in flash memory to make startup faster, both applications and the boot itself. BUT, there is a big but here, ReadyDRIVE use something called "Turbo memory", which is made by intel, and NOT usb flash drives or SD cards. Turbo memory is a separate socket built into a laptop that only some manufacturers have added. http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/apac/eng/products/mobile/mprod/turbo_memory/396715.htm
Readydrive will speed up your system even if it is not marginal performance wise.

ReadyBOOST on the other hand uses SD cards and USB flash drives, and do NOT "pin" programs in memory, but help out with the pagefile if it is large slow and generally slowing down your pc. ReadyDRIVE is supposed to create a sort of "Hybrid" of regular harddrive and SSD (Solid State Drive). In that regard it works very well. ReadyDRIVE only speeds up your system if you are low on ram, and say you cant install more, then it will give a noticable improvement.

Use FAST (Class10) SD cards or flashdrives to get good performance from ReadyBOOST. And yes, if you have a SSD (Solid State Drive) then ReadyBOOST is disabled by windows.

One can use both technologies though, but dont expect the results from both if one only use one of them.

(To add to the confusion, there is a 2 Gb Intel TurboMemory module that can be used BOTH as readyDrive AND Readyboost. However, if one use a usb or sd card for the readyboost, that feature isnt much needed.)