Flash Drive as Ram if you use Vista Yeah, so this is the new technology esp. if you're a broke college student like myself and want to put some speed into your system. http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1472 Enhanced for Windows® ReadyBoost™ - Available in March 2007 * Supercharge Your PC’s Performance With SanDisk USB Flash Drives * How ReadyBoost Technology Works * The Choice Is Yours * Your Data Is Always Safe and Secure * The More Flash Memory, the Bigger the Boost Supercharge Your PC’s Performance With SanDisk USB Flash Drives Running Windows Vista? Then you can use a SanDisk “Enhanced for ReadyBoost” USB Flash Drive to improve your PC’s performance – without the hassle and expense of installing additional RAM (Random Access Memory) in your system. And you can still use the flash drive for file storage as usual. How ReadyBoost Technology Works ReadyBoost allows your PC to use any “Enhanced for ReadyBoost” flash drive as additional memory. In effect, the flash drive becomes an extension of your system’s RAM. Because applications can retrieve data from the flash drive more quickly than from your PC’s hard drive, your system responds faster and runs better. The Choice Is Yours When you plug in any “Enhanced for ReadyBoost” flash drive, Windows Vista gives you the option of using the drive to speed up your system or as storage only: You may then choose how much of the drive’s memory you want to use as system memory and how much you want to reserve for file storage: Your Data Is Always Safe and Secure With ReadyBoost, data stored on a flash drive to boost system performance is also backed up on your PC’s hard drive. You can remove the flash drive any time without losing any information or harming your system. Also, all data stored on the flash drive is encrypted, so it can’t be accessed or tampered with if the drive falls into someone else’s hands. The More Flash Memory, the Bigger the Boost To take advantage of ReadyBoost, you need at least 1GB of free memory on a flash drive, and ReadyBoost can take advantage of up to 4GB. That’s why, if you’re running Windows Vista, it’s a good idea to use higher-capacity flash drives – so you’ll have plenty of memory for ReadyBoost, and plenty for your file storage.
I read another artical that this might work with any regular usb flash drive since the program is integrated into Vista. Your usb drive is basically another way for more info. to be processed like ram chip.
is it? I have vista but haven't used it yet so I don't know. when an operating systems come out initally they are buggy and then they come out with patches.
I believe the max is 2GB. Readyboost can only be used on 1 usb drive, in other words no "raid." Doesn't matter what brand you uses. BTW, using Flash as a primary boot drive is in the works. Current going price is roughly 300 for a 32gb SSD drive. Example of a SSD from Samsung:
it doesn't speed up your system like RAM does. Its way different. 2GB on ready boost is not even equal to 128mb of RAM
RAM would definitely be faster.. especially if your using DDR2 or better... still, any boost in speed is worth it. Vista is such a resource hog
i would LOVE if this worked for xp... i wanna avoid vista for now... but when my dad gets a new laptop, and vista, ill test it out on his.. flash drive..... ram..... wow lol my ram would be.... 4gigs times 4 slots (16 gigs OF RAM!! LMAOOOOO <- exaggeration of course!)
this feature was around before vista. its just that they incorporated it into the os intself. n flash drives will soon compete or replace regular hds.
That would be sick to have a flash drive big enough have your operating system in it. No more clicking from the regular harddrive, but I think it will really heat up the flash harddrive though. 32gig for 300 is expensive. For that price you can probably buy a tetrabyte or 2 500 gig hard drives.
It is called Ready Boost and it works as follows: ReadyBoost ReadyBoost is a memory extension for Windows Vista. It works very much like the swap file on the hard drive, but it is not used as an active extension to the main memory. Instead, Windows uses it to pre-cache application data for popular programs. ReadyBoost is meant to support the new SuperFetch feature by adding more memory to the system. Microsoft's intended storage device is a USB 2.0 Flash memory stick, mainly because these products are incredibly affordable and reasonably fast. Knowing that USB 2.0 memory sticks deliver between 5 MB/s and 30 MB/s you might wonder how this makes sense. Most USB 2.0 Flash memory devices on the market offer a capacity of 512 MB to 4 GB. There are smaller and even larger products available; the mainstream is at around 1 GB. These storage devices are very popular, as they are durable and small, and they can be used as a key fob. Many users use USB Flash memory sticks today as they used to jockey floppy disks. The strength of Flash memory isn't exception transfer performance, but access times that can almost be called nonexistent. Even if you got a memory stick that doesn't provide more than 15 MB/s, it will still benefit from its DRAM-like access times. Compared to a hard drive, which might not be able to provide requested data at its maximum transfer performance of 60-80 MB/s due to higher priority system requests, the USB 2.0 Flash device should be available for serving the SuperFetch purpose. Even the separation of swapped data on the hard drive, and superfetched application data on a USB Flash device provides a small advantage. When you check out our test results later on you will realize that the memory expansion by means of an USB 2.0 Flash memory device does indeed have a positive impact on application launch time. If you already have a high-speed USB 2.0 Flash memory device at 512 MB or higher capacity you should consider plugging it into an available USB 2.0 port. Windows will prompt you as you plug it in, but instead of opening an Explorer window to access the device's content you can now assign it for use with ReadyBoost. You can use the whole capacity or reserve a smaller capacity for ReadyBoost. It's important to know that Windows doesn't store critical data onto the USB device, which means that you can remove it at any time without facing any kind of data loss. The only impact might be longer application launch times.
Yeah, well here's what's concluded by Tom's Hardware Conclusion SuperFetch takes care of buffering applications proactively; ReadyBoost provides the additional memory space to do so. Both new features cannot make systems faster than they are; which means that power-hungry applications do not benefit from them. SuperFetch uses available main memory space that may have been unused under Windows XP, and ReadyBoost utilizes a mature and cheap technology by means of USB 2.0 Flash memory devices to provide additional memory capacity for the SuperFetch feature. With only a little "learning", Vista will know which applications are most important for you, and it will preload them into available main memory and onto the ReadyBoost device. In short: Vista succeeds in utilizing existing resources and technology to provide more balanced performance. The results are impressive: Using both features, Windows Vista shows off how it can effectively reduce application launch times to provide a better performance experience with your everyday software. At only 512 MB RAM, application launch times decrease from 9 seconds (OpenOffice Writer 2.1) and 10 seconds (Outlook 2007) to 2-4 seconds only. Adding our 1 GB USB 2.0 Flash stick helped to shorten launch times for these applications to 2-3 seconds only. The next conclusion is that Windows Vista with only 512 MB RAM is no fun at all, because applications start much faster only by having 1 GB of RAM. In fact, both Outlook 2007 and OpenOffice Writer 2.1 start even faster on a fresh Windows Vista installation than on our SuperFetch-trained and ReadyBoost-enabled system at only 512 MB. Having 2 GB of RAM reduced application launch times even more, but now we're talking about fractions of a second. But again: If you study our results carefully, you'll realize that it makes sense plugging an unused high-speed USB 2.0 Flash device into a USB 2.0 port: Application responsiveness at lauch does still benefit! Although the technology helps to make best use of what you already have, we recommend having at least 1 GB of RAM before you even think of installing Vista. Enthusiasts and power users should not start the Vista voyage with less than 2 GB RAM, because you'll not only want to provide memory space for SuperFetch; you should also think of your running applications. Give Vista as much memory as you can, and it will thank you by serving you quicker.
Most modern USB sticks are compatible. Some of the cheapo brands are. BTW, Flash Memory is also compatible. Im using a 1GB SD card for readyboost. That crap is a scam! theres no performance chnage whatsoever
i heard of this too .. and i think it may slow down the performance abit .. coz it still need time to transfer .. but still no harm to try it .. at least something new and different ..
