Windows Forums member, shoby, asked the following question in our suggestion box:
I would like to see a review about Ready Boost in Windows 7.
Does it really help you out when you need some extra performance or does it just look like it helps you out ?
It surely can’t be like you actually went out and bought some RAM, but how good is Ready Boost actually.
Is it gonna help me out with the my daily tasks/multitasking.
TIA.
This guide answers these questions and offer suggestions to help you get the most out or ReadyBoost or the most out of the money you’d spend on a flash drive with which to use ReadyBoost. Specifically, we’ll cover the following:
- What is ReadyBoost?
- Does ReadyBoost really work?
- What are the requirements for ReadyBoost?
- What security risks does ReadyBoost pose?
- What alternatives are there to ReadyBoost?
If you want to learn how to use ReadyBoost, see this guide: Speed up Windows with ReadyBoost.
What is ReadyBoost?
To get a clear explanation of ReadyBoost I went to the Windows 7 help console (yeah, I’m not playing with you, I really did) and got the following:
ReadyBoost can speed up your computer by using storage space on most USB flash drives and flash memory cards. When you plug a ReadyBoost-compatible storage device into your computer, the AutoPlay dialog box offers you the option to speed up your computer using ReadyBoost. If you select this option, you can choose how much memory on the device to use for this purpose.
To add to this, ready boost stores frequently used data on a flash drive, which typically reads much more quickly than it would from your hard drive. We’ll stick with these explanations now and expound on them in the next section.
Does ReadyBoost Really Work?
In theory, yes. But not for every setup.
In this section, we’ll explore the technical details of ReadyBoost and look at some benchmark tests to help you determine whether ReadyBoost will help you.
The Technical Part
The average random 4K read from a flash device is approximately ten times faster than accessing the same information from your 7200 rpm hard disk drive. As thumb drives can be read very quickly (and even more quickly as we adopt USB 3.0, this makes them a great candidate for storing information that has to be accessed as quickly as possible.) The reason it’s an average time is because there is little to no seek time on a flash drive whereas a disk drive has different seek times depending on how contiguous the data is and how much is being read.
All flash drives are not made equal (ever wonder why some “brand name” drives are 3-4 times the price of ones you can find on eBay?) To work with ReadyBoost, the flash drive must be capable of 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec for random writes. How do you know if your current drive is compatible? Plug it in and see if Windows offers the use of ReadyBoost. What about a new drive? Check the next section for the answer to that question.
Benchmark Testing
As I don’t have the equipment to test ReadyBoost, I’ll summarize some data from Tom’s Hardware and suggest you head to the test results article to get a full insight of the effects of ReadyBoost.
This chart shows the time it takes to open Microsoft Outlook 2007 on a machine with 512MB RAM. Each line represents the first, second, and third opening of the program through three cycles (for a total of nine times.)
As you can see, the more you use ReadyBoost, the more it helps you as it collects information to help you get the most out of the space you allocate for it.
The effects of ReadyBoost are lessened by having more memory.
To see more about this data, view the original chart.
To summarize the results from the Tom’s Hardware tests, ReadyBoost is only really good if you have an older, slower system. You may be wasting a good flash drive if you use it on a more powerful machine.
So, Does ReadyBoost Really Work?
The effect of ReadyBoost will be greater if you are on a PC that is currently struggling to keep up with everything you throw at it. Typically, a struggling machine (that’s not infected with malware) has low available memory and runs slow because your hard disk is being thrashed with inputs and outputs (IO) of data the operating system needs available (should be stored in RAM) and historical data used to speed up routine processes (Superfetch.)
In other words, if your PC has 512MB of RAM then you’re going to see a big improvement using ReadyBoost. However, you’ll see an even greater improvement by adding more RAM, which for another 512 MB / 1GB can be about the same price as a good quality 4GB flash drive. I’d go with the extra memory (more about that later.)
What are the Requirements for ReadyBoost?
If you’ve decided to use ReadyBoost, the requirements are:
- A PC:
- With a free USB 2.0 port (or up to eight for Windows 7 64-bit.)
- Running Windows Vista or Windows 7.
- A flash drive:
- Capable of 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec for random writes.
- Between 250MB and 4GB in size (Vista 32-bit.)
- Between 250MB and 16GB in size (Vista 64-bit.)
- Between 250MB and 4GB in size (Windows 7 32-bit.)
- Between 250MB and 32GB in size and up to eight devices for a total of 256GB (Windows 7 64-bit.)
If you want to learn how to use ReadyBoost, see this guide: Speed up Windows with ReadyBoost.
Microsoft offer the following tips for ReadyBoost:
Here are some tips on what to look for when selecting a USB flash drive or flash memory card to use with ReadyBoost:
- The minimum amount of available space recommended for ReadyBoost to effectively speed up your computer is 1 GB.
- For best results, use a flash drive or flash memory card with available space of at least double the amount of memory (RAM) in your computer, and preferably four times as much memory. For example, if your computer has 1 GB of RAM and you plug in a 4 GB USB flash drive, set aside at least 2 GB on the flash drive to get the best performance gain from ReadyBoost, and preferably the entire 4 GB. How much memory you need depends on how you use your computer. Keeping a lot of programs open at once uses more memory.
- Give ReadyBoost 2 GB to 4 GB of space for best results on most computers. You can reserve more than 4 GB of space for ReadyBoost on most flash drives and flash memory cards. (Storage devices formatted with the older FAT32 file system can’t store more than 4 GB.) You can use a maximum of 32 GB of available space on any single removable storage device with ReadyBoost and up to 256 GB total per computer (by inserting up to eight USB flash drives or flash memory cards into the same computer).
- To work with ReadyBoost, a USB flash drive must support USB 2.0 or higher. Your computer must have at least one free USB 2.0port where you can plug in the flash drive. ReadyBoost works best if you plug the flash drive into a USB port directly on the computer, rather than into an external USB hub shared with other USB devices.
- If you want to be sure a USB flash drive works with ReadyBoost, look for a note from the manufacturer that the flash drive is “Enhanced for ReadyBoost.” Not all manufacturers list this on their packaging. If there is no mention of ReadyBoost compatibility, the flash drive still may work with ReadyBoost.
- There are many different kinds of flash memory cards, such as CompactFlash and Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. Most memory cards work with ReadyBoost. Some SD memory cards don’t work well with ReadyBoost due to issues with the SD card interface. ReadyBoost will display an error message if you attempt to use one of these cards.
What Security Risks Does ReadyBoost Pose?
Surely carrying around a thumb drive that contains information on what you’re doing on your machine could pose a security risk in the wrong hands? Hopefully not because Microsoft use AES-128 to encrypt all data that’s written to the ReadyBoost cache, so the chances of exposing sensitive date are small.
What Alternatives are there to ReadyBoost?
Two alternatives (that will significantly improve performance over ReadyBoost) are:
- Using a Solid State Drive (SSD) for your Operating System Drive.
- Adding additional memory (RAM) to your computer.
If your budget is less of a concern to you and if you already have 4+ GB RAM, using one or both of these options will be more beneficial to the overall performance of your computer.
Alternatively, you can accept that you have a pretty good PC and don’t need so spend more hard-earned money on it. But who am I kidding, most of us here are geeks at heart, right?
Does ReadyBoost Work for You?
Let us know your system specifications in the comments and tell us if ReadyBoost made a difference for your machine. Under what loads do you put your machine? i.e. Photoshop, Office, programming IDEs, video editing etc.
About Rich
Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.
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