Microsoft Still Trying to Patent Windows Vista's ReadyBoost

By Wolfgang Gruener
published

A patent for Microsoft's ReadyBoost technology, which surfaced first in Windows Vista was recently resubmitted by Microsoft for approval by the USPTO.

The document indicates that Microsoft filed the patent application initially on October 21, 2004 and followed up on February 5, 2009 and May 6, 2010. The most recent continuation was submitted by Microsoft in July of this year in what appears to be an ongoing process to get the invention approved.

Described as "using external memory devices to improve system performance", the document relates to a feature that was heavily marketed during the launch of Windows Vista and is still available, but is largely forgotten by mainstream users today. According to the patent application, the invention covers external memory storage devices that integrate volatile or non-volatile solid-state memory. The idea is to use such a drive "to cache sectors from the hard disk (i.e., disk sectors) and/or slower memory components to improve system performance."

According to the data published, Microsoft found that data read times could be accelerated by more than 60 percent in some circumstances with this technology.

Wolfgang Gruener
19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • so they want to patent putting a pagefile/swap on any external device? m$ is trying to pull an apple.
    Reply
  • mrmike_49
    theTwizso they want to patent putting a pagefile/swap on any external device? m$ is trying to pull an apple.really!

    real basic idea, and actually I think I came up with it first, so M$ needs to pay me
    Reply
  • nekatreven
    Although I admit that I turn off ReadyBoost and Superfetch on every system I use, I still think you guys are talking out your a$$.

    I wasn't aware that anyone else besides Microsoft had implemented a second swap service for faster solid state devices and an algorithm to detect what should be swapped to 'Boost, what should go to normal swap, and what should not be swapped (based on criteria such as the percentage of random io being done on items needing to be swapped).

    Regardless of my feelings that ReadyBoost doesn't work well enough to be worth the hassle, and that it is 100 times better to spend a few more dollars to add RAM.... you should either start listing the operating systems you know of that also do this.... or otherwise kindly stop spouting trash about subjects that make your ignorance shine.

    (And fyi I am aware that most operating systems implement paging priorities, but for the most part they fill the highest priority swap device and move on to the next. They don't subdivide based on workload, so it isn't the same.)
    Reply
  • Scanlia
    No. The. Patent. System. Is. Broken.
    Reply
  • Pinhedd
    ReadyBoost was largely forgotten after vista for two reasons:

    1. The proliferation of cheap, high density, high speed DDR3 RAM. Windows natively caches some files in the RAM already and most systems today have 8-16GiB installed so there's really no need to use it.

    2. External flash is still heavily bottlenecked by the dated USB2.0 specification. 480mbps peak is nothing compared to the 3gbps link between the same IO controller and the hard disk cache. It's also trivial compared to the RAM caching mentioned avove.

    I imagine the reason that they're still pushing for it is because USB3.0 will allow for today's much larger external flash based storage to boost performance like it was supposed to several years ago.
    Reply
  • livebriand
    Who needs it? Most PCs have 4GB ram now, so that's plenty. I've never used it, for sure.
    Reply
  • alyoshka
    Well, the new X79 boards all have this SRT thing which is actually readyboost.... so you can understand what MS is trying to do, every processor with SRT and every chip maker using SSD caching will have to pay MS..... that's a heel of a lot of dough.....
    All the leading board makers are using this as the new marketing gimmic, so every board that sells......:) MS has a dime to pocket.....
    Reply
  • alyoshka
    opps...."that's a hell of a lotta money....:)"
    Reply
  • alyoshka
    oops..."opps"
    Reply
  • danwat1234
    PinheddReadyBoost was largely forgotten after vista for two reasons:1. The proliferation of cheap, high density, high speed DDR3 RAM. Windows natively caches some files in the RAM already and most systems today have 8-16GiB installed so there's really no need to use it.2. External flash is still heavily bottlenecked by the dated USB2.0 specification. 480mbps peak is nothing compared to the 3gbps link between the same IO controller and the hard disk cache. It's also trivial compared to the RAM caching mentioned avove.I imagine the reason that they're still pushing for it is because USB3.0 will allow for today's much larger external flash based storage to boost performance like it was supposed to several years ago.

    Microsoft uses Readyboost on external storage devices that have high performance when it comes to highly random i/o. USB 2.0 isn't much of a bottleneck here. The goal of readyboost is to reduce the load of the mechanical hard drive of random access, which is a mechanical drive's slow point. It isn't supposed to offload sequential transfer operations.
    Reply