Missing of Readybooster in Vista - Shift General

I found that our shift's Vista has no Readybooster function when we plug in an external USB thumb!
How can we enable it ? It's a very useful function for speed up the Vista.

eken said:
I found that our shift's Vista has no Readybooster function when we plug in an external USB thumb!
How can we enable it ? It's a very useful function for speed up the Vista.
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Click to collapse
Search is your friend! This has been asked and answered many times!
By default the ReadyBoost service is disabled - renable it for automatic startup and everything should be fine.
Regards,
Dave

OH! really thanks for the help! I just forgot the Search function!
It works fine on my 8G Transcend SDHC Class 6
" 1. Click on the Start button.
2. In the search field on the Start button type services.msc and press the enter key.
3. When User Access Control asks if you would like to continue, do so or provide administrative account credentials to do so.
4. Scroll down to and double-click on the ReadyBoost service.
1. Change the Startup Type drop down menu to to Automatic.
2. Then press the Start button to start the service.
3. Press the OK button.
5. Now close the Services console.
The ReadyBoost service should now be started and if you reinsert the flash drive it will prompt you to use the drive for ReadyBoost."
.
Quoted from another thread in this forum, which is easily found using the search function *hint hint*
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Click to collapse

Readyboost a usefull feature on the Shift??? Don't think so!
Problem: The slow harddisk - filling the ReadyBoost cache would keep the disk busy for an amazing time. Next problem: The slow processor. Remember: The ReadyBoost cache is encrypted - the encryption eats up pretty much processor power. In fact: ReadyBoost can easily SLOW DOWN (!) the Shift - and shorten the battery runtime.
ReadBoost is a nice idea for machines with powerful processors and 512MB RAM. On the shift? It's a perfomance killer - and: Even without an SD card or USB stick used as ReadBoost-Drive, the service would slow down Vista. There is a good reason why Vista is rather usable on the shift - because HTC disabled some of the fancy technologies within Vista wich slows down the machine.

skin57 said:
Readyboost a usefull feature on the Shift??? Don't think so!
Problem: The slow harddisk - filling the ReadyBoost cache would keep the disk busy for an amazing time. Next problem: The slow processor. Remember: The ReadyBoost cache is encrypted - the encryption eats up pretty much processor power. In fact: ReadyBoost can easily SLOW DOWN (!) the Shift - and shorten the battery runtime.
ReadBoost is a nice idea for machines with powerful processors and 512MB RAM. On the shift? It's a perfomance killer - and: Even without an SD card or USB stick used as ReadBoost-Drive, the service would slow down Vista. There is a good reason why Vista is rather usable on the shift - because HTC disabled some of the fancy technologies within Vista wich slows down the machine.
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Click to collapse
I agree. On the Shift, readyboost does more harm than good.

readyboost not usefull?
you are saying that readyboost on shif is not good?
i've an asus g1s that have an incorporated 512mb memory module dedicated to readyboost. and seems very very usefull.

pitt1983 said:
you are saying that readyboost on shif is not good?
i've an asus g1s that have an incorporated 512mb memory module dedicated to readyboost. and seems very very usefull.
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Click to collapse
Oh dear... i hope you don't want to compare the benefits of ReadyBoost between a Ultralowpower-Device like the shift with it's 800Mhz-Processor and an HighPower-FullSize-Gaming-Notebook with a let's say 3x faster processor, faster Harddisk etc???
Remember: Using ReadyBoost cost's a lot of processor horsepower - because the data are stored encrypted. And: Filling up the readyboost cache needs a lot of disk transfers during startup time. Doing so on a slow processor with a slow disk?? Bad idea - takes too much time, and too much CPU horsepower (thus, too much Battery life!).
Once again: In most cases, ReadyBoost is completly useless (and even worse) on the Shift - so, its a whise discussion to disable it.

That's why it is disabled by default on the Shift.

skin57 said:
Oh dear... i hope you don't want to compare the benefits of ReadyBoost between a Ultralowpower-Device like the shift with it's 800Mhz-Processor and an HighPower-FullSize-Gaming-Notebook with a let's say 3x faster processor, faster Harddisk etc???
Remember: Using ReadyBoost cost's a lot of processor horsepower - because the data are stored encrypted. And: Filling up the readyboost cache needs a lot of disk transfers during startup time. Doing so on a slow processor with a slow disk?? Bad idea - takes too much time, and too much CPU horsepower (thus, too much Battery life!).
Once again: In most cases, ReadyBoost is completly useless (and even worse) on the Shift - so, its a whise discussion to disable it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, i'm do not comparing those two devices i know them are very different, but i thought, that readyboost may operate in the same mode.
by the way, have you tried it?

skin57 said:
Oh dear... i hope you don't want to compare the benefits of ReadyBoost between a Ultralowpower-Device like the shift with it's 800Mhz-Processor and an HighPower-FullSize-Gaming-Notebook with a let's say 3x faster processor, faster Harddisk etc???
Remember: Using ReadyBoost cost's a lot of processor horsepower - because the data are stored encrypted. And: Filling up the readyboost cache needs a lot of disk transfers during startup time. Doing so on a slow processor with a slow disk?? Bad idea - takes too much time, and too much CPU horsepower (thus, too much Battery life!).
Once again: In most cases, ReadyBoost is completly useless (and even worse) on the Shift - so, its a whise discussion to disable it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
strange, i have notice a speed increase after i enable the ready boost, it makes my shift run faster and smoother

ready boost
put on shift a 512mb micro sd card.
configured forreadyboost.
the boot of the shift is better and faster. during usage in vista the cpu and ram consume is normal.
so i think that readyboost may increase performances of shift.

This is a very interesting thread, it is a very important point for all of us as this is certainly not a speed machine and I am not saying I am not happy with the shift, I am just saying that a quicker boot time would be a bonus and any speed increase would be appreciated.
We need to do some serious tests, I will time my boot time now and then activate ReadyBoost and time that and post the difference.....

i had the idea to time with a chrono the boot time and others operations. but don't had much spare time. remember i'm usingn readyboost with sp1

Related

XDA II very slow......

Is there anyway to make this fast? or any defragmenting software so that i can defrag it and make it fast? thx
Yes! Turn off permanent save!
It improve performance by a 10x factor!
what is 10x factor
what is 10x factor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it means that it make it faster by a factor of 10 as in 10 times faster
of cause i doubt very much that defrag does that because it's not machanical like a harddisk
then the only "seek" delay is cas and ras which are pretty low compared to seek time on magnetic and optical disks
pocket mechanics can defrag a SD card but i would not do it because i doubt very much that it would help much and with sd cards limited writings before it dies defrag could dec the life time
Overclock
You could try overclocking your device. Before I give you the link to this application though, first some warning:
Overclocking the device involves sending more power, as in battery power, to the processor. Doing this obviously generates more heat in the processor and therefore processor life will be reduced, sometimes dramatically.
Battery life is also a consideration. I experience half battery life when I overclock my device to 530MHz, above the normal 400MHz.
The application also gives you the ability to under-clock your device, making it slower but giving extremely extended batery life (I wouldn't recommend anything under 300MHz unless you are just receiving calls).
Here's the link to the app:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=10400&highlight=scalar
Ask if you have any questions about this as the detrimental effects are real.
The number one cause of the XDA2 (MDA2, Qtek2020, etc) to slow down are the dreaded Notifications bug and the 32 process limit, plus even tho we have plenty of RAM, if you get lots of stuff on your internal RAM and manage to go as low as 30 or 20 megabytes free both on storage and program, the system WILL start to degrade drastically!
The notification bug can be fixed with Pocket Mechanic (comercial package) or Check Notifications (www.ScaryBearSoftware.com FREE).
And the 32 process limit can be avoided by going to your Windows/Startup folder and delete some unnecesary (at least for me) applications. Just make sure you don't delete STK.lnk, Poutlook.lnk, MMReg.lnk, ChgDfLnk.lnk (could vary by model, mine is an MDA2).
The last solution is to buy an SD Memroy Card to store files and install software. The more free internal memory you have the better.
Regards!
Hi Rayan,
And the 32 process limit can be avoided by going to your Windows/Startup folder and delete some unnecesary (at least for me) applications. Just make sure you don't delete STK.lnk, Poutlook.lnk, MMReg.lnk, ChgDfLnk.lnk (could vary by model, mine is an MDA2).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you tell us what these lnks are used for. I've got a PDA2k with most of these except mmreg.
Thanks
T
Re: Overclock
davidand1 said:
You could try overclocking your device. Before I give you the link to this application though, first some warning:
Overclocking the device involves sending more power, as in battery power, to the processor. Doing this obviously generates more heat in the processor and therefore processor life will be reduced, sometimes dramatically.
Battery life is also a consideration. I experience half battery life when I overclock my device to 530MHz, above the normal 400MHz.
The application also gives you the ability to under-clock your device, making it slower but giving extremely extended batery life (I wouldn't recommend anything under 300MHz unless you are just receiving calls).
Here's the link to the app:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=10400&highlight=scalar
Ask if you have any questions about this as the detrimental effects are real.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried Scalar. It is really oasome :shock: Tried the 3rd CPU speed (300), it did save battery life by almost 25% yet the p.mance is much slower, whereas 5th speed (472) is a jetspeed!!
mmreg for mms,
stk for sim tool kit
poutlook for pocket outlook...
but to tell you the truth, I deleted everytrhing coz i dont use them
Also check this out...
http://scarybearsoftware.com/ppc_cn_overview.html
To be specific, poutlook is used when you have set your Inbox to wake up your device every x minutes to connect and download email from your POP or IMAP server.
If you don't use that functionality, you can safely delete poutlook

What is it with emulators?

I know that the Ameo throttles the CPU back (but I'm not happy with having PHM installed all the time, as I don't trust it to properly slow the machine down), but why do so many emulators fail on the Ameo?
Pocket Plus/4 is really, really choppy and unreliable.
Pocket Atari seems to work sometimes, but at other times I get speaker popping and no functional emulator.
Pocket C64 is just useless and doesn't support the keyboard, it seems; and setting up the controls seems to cause fuss for the sound, too.
This is supposed to be a fast machine, so I'm baffled by the apparent slowness when it does run an emulator. Pocket Plus/4 especially drops to 4% speed; I thought the CPU was supposed to catch up to the demand!
And tried with PHM anyway, still no better.
I just tried the exact same installation of Pocket Atari on the Universal with WM6 installed. It's working quite well; I'm currently playing Rescue on Fractalus (XEGS ROM).
Is it a memory management thing, or Microdrive, or something else?
RichardKAthena said:
And tried with PHM anyway, still no better.
I just tried the exact same installation of Pocket Atari on the Universal with WM6 installed. It's working quite well; I'm currently playing Rescue on Fractalus (XEGS ROM).
Is it a memory management thing, or Microdrive, or something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the Universal you probably installed it to the SD? If so, have you tested it on the SD of the Athena? I also noticed a few slow downs on my Athena and I have a Universal also to compare to. I have to redo my Universal because it's running very slow so I can't compare at the moment. I have read on the forums that users have noticed a performance increase with some WM6 installs. This could be a factor but I also think that the SD card is faster than the microDrive. Try it on the SD if you already haven't and see how it goes.
ltxda said:
On the Universal you probably installed it to the SD? If so, have you tested it on the SD of the Athena? I also noticed a few slow downs on my Athena and I have a Universal also to compare to. I have to redo my Universal because it's running very slow so I can't compare at the moment. I have read on the forums that users have noticed a performance increase with some WM6 installs. This could be a factor but I also think that the SD card is faster than the microDrive. Try it on the SD if you already haven't and see how it goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have a miniSD, I tried it on internal memory (which I'd expect to be fast) with exactly the same results.
Broken Sword demo runs beautifully from Microdrive; maybe a bit of lag on audio. PocketAtari should be less reliant on the Microdrive than any large game.
I definitely think WM6 feels snappier (though my machine did get sluggish; perhaps the memory leak issue mentioned), but there are some WEIRD glitches going on here. One of the most telling things was when messaging popped up; directly before corrupting PocketAtari's screen with a notification, the messaging application's "activation" caused PocketAtari to run at full speed.
I think there must be some CPU "optimisation" going on within the WM5 build on the Ameo, and I don't think PHM actually cured it for me (I tried forcing the CPU fast for PocketAtari, and just forcing the CPU fast overall).
RichardKAthena said:
I don't have a miniSD, I tried it on internal memory (which I'd expect to be fast) with exactly the same results.
Broken Sword demo runs beautifully from Microdrive; maybe a bit of lag on audio. PocketAtari should be less reliant on the Microdrive than any large game.
I definitely think WM6 feels snappier (though my machine did get sluggish; perhaps the memory leak issue mentioned), but there are some WEIRD glitches going on here. One of the most telling things was when messaging popped up; directly before corrupting PocketAtari's screen with a notification, the messaging application's "activation" caused PocketAtari to run at full speed.
I think there must be some CPU "optimisation" going on within the WM5 build on the Ameo, and I don't think PHM actually cured it for me (I tried forcing the CPU fast for PocketAtari, and just forcing the CPU fast overall).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, sounds like it's a CPU scaling issue indeed. Have you tried to disable the internal scaling using something like PHM? Not allowing it to manage the speeds but just disable the internal system and see what happens.
ltxda said:
Wow, sounds like it's a CPU scaling issue indeed. Have you tried to disable the internal scaling using something like PHM? Not allowing it to manage the speeds but just disable the internal system and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, still choppy as anything. Thing is it appears that if I disable scaling and leave it at that (and don't let Scale Engine run), then it stays at 104MHz! But even running at 624MHz - surely plenty for a 1MHz 6502 machine to be emulated - it's running at 4% speed!

ameo running slow

as others, after installing lots of softwares on my ameo, it's running extremely slow nowadays.
I already reduce to keep those software I do require.
can anyone recommend any solution. thx.
I knew this is a general question and try to search in the forum. unfortunately it comes up lots of irrelevant result. :-(
If you're still on wm5, the first thing you should do to improve stability and speed is to upgrade to wm6. For me there was a world of difference.
If you have already upgraded and still find it slow, then one of the things you should rule out is whether or not it is caused by problem in reading and writing to the card or microdrive. Do a few rounds of performance test using Sktools a and are if they are normal still. If there are lost chains or cluster,repair them using pocket mechanics professional. Alternatively,copy the content to pc using wm5torage, reformat the card/drive,and copy them back from pc to card/drive. Redo the sktools performance test to ensure speed has improved. The last time when I had your problem ( soon after my wm6 upgrade), I did this and performance has been very good since then. Oh, I forgot to mention that one of the reasons I experienced sluggishness was due to incorrect formatting parameter for my card. When I format them correctly, speed improved dramatically.
If your MD is very fragmented,you could do what I recommended rather waiting hours and hours for defragmentation to finish.
I also try to install frequently used program in device memory,and seldom used one or very large program such as dictionary on microdrive. I have close about 50 third party software so the device memory isn't enough to hold them all. I find that speed also suffer of i'm low in device memory. So, don't waste it on things you seldom use.
Let's do that and see if speed improves.
thanks for your helpful tips. Eaglesteve. I will follow your hint to speed up my ameo. I am on WM6 arleady. probably as u point out, sw installed on MD is slowing down the device.
Forget to mention that, my device is always running at high cpu load. >90%.
Running at 90% could be a real clue. Have you installed any programs to improve your bluetooth performance?
whatabout device storage memory remaining? If it is critically low it will also prevent program from starting and making them slow. If so, check the size of internet temporary file in windows directory. If needed, go to delete them. I just did for mine and freed up over 50mb of device storage memory!
nrm said:
Running at 90% could be a real clue. Have you installed any programs to improve your bluetooth performance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, I am using BTIO

Substantial memory leak

Hi,
I've noticed that over the course of a day, the memory consumption of the HD increases substantially... going up from about 30% to over 60% if I use it heavily. I imagine it has something to do with the different caches and the tweaks I've run (found on the forums) to increase performance. Is there a way to flush all caches so that I don't have to reset the device?
Thanks!
I'd like to know if anyone else is having this problem too.
After a fresh reboot my memory usage is about 30%. By the time Gyrator and TouchFlo restart it gets to about 40% where it stays.
However once I start using programs it will easily skyrocket to about 70%. Even if I close all the programs using taskmanager I will never recover more than about 2-3% of memory.
i use memmaid to free memory from time to time, but i we also backup a request for something that automaticly do that
shadow option for sktools made my hd to stuck so i rennounced to it
any ideeas?
now i don't know if this can affect battery performance but with computers the most efficient system is NOT the one with a lot of free ram, is the one that USES it totally... virtually having always ram at 99% would mean maximum performance... In other words: why do you want to flush the ram
This can not affect battery performance at all.
And it's totally normal to use ALL ram.
I guess you people grew up with normal Windows, that frees ram...
For example Linux has always used 99% RAM on your pc. It just uses all the free RAM as cache! So when there is more needed, it deletes some cache and allocates that RAM.
It is bad, very bad to waste memory by not using 100%. Using all memory for cache and only giving memory when it is needed is good for performance.
If you look at Vista, it does the same thing...
So it is normal behaviour, especially when you set all the caches high.
I use the SKTools application "FreeUP RAM" which does a sweep of RAM and normally saves about 5-10 mb.
BUT, I find I rarely need it as I don't seem to have any memory leak except with TomTom running.
i am not sure i can follow you
if i understand well, linux keem memory ocupied in order to fully use the whole capacity
but is not the case of windows, and sure is not the case of windows mobile
in my device, diferent processes and application take a slice of memory and does not release it even when you close them
so you end with a memory occupied 60, 70 even 80% despite the fact that you have nothing obviously running
because of that (not having enough free RAM), when you launch a new application, the HD became very slow or even stuck
correct me if i am wrong, but this is what i have noticed during the years of use of windows or windows mobile.
i am not computer literated so i might be wrong, though!
I also raise this problem here before, most expert's advise is that WM will manage memory itself, it is not necessary for us to do anything!!
I had tried to use memmaid, but it only free up 1-2M memory.
Back to the time when I use D810, if there are few MB left, I can't launch new application. Even when I close some and make free RAM left to 16+ MB, that program will still report out of memory........the only thing I can do is to soft reset.....
HD's RAM capacity is much better, but as time goes......maybe this problem will also happen!?!?
Sorry but not convinced. I agree that when in use 70-80% memory usage is not a problem. But when there are no programs running, then there is no reason to use ram.
Also on my previous wm6.1 device when you closed items in task manager it would restore ram. Sure not all of it but a good chunk of it. Heck, even on my previous HD using the task manager would free more ram.
The only thing that I can see that is different between my previous HD and this one is Tweak HD and the TouchFLO Calender. So I will try removing those first and see what happens,
Eventually, after flashing Laurentius's ROM, the problem went away almost completely. Have to say my memory usage is pretty stable now, at around 40-45% even after a day of full application and web use.
dunno personally i'd love to have a superfetch feature like in vista which keeps ram full
Higher memory usage causes minimal/neglectable effect on power consumption, RAM is powered as a whole, fractional/partial modes (where only used memory cells are powered) are not available on modern RAM chips. The CPU or DMA controller may use more power swapping memory data in and out as memory usage grows, however the increase is nothing in comparison with what the LCD backlight or loudspeaker would use.
I don't know what memory allocation method is used in Windows CE/Mobile, but regardless, being unable to start a new application while there are no other applications running in the background means that physical memory is depleted and this is not normal. OS may use RAM for caching/buffering to optimize performance, however memory allocated for optimizations should probably be released when it's required for other purposes. If this is not happening, than either OS lost track of allocated/unallocated memory or memory allocation approach is very inefficient and causes high fragmentation.
Here's a list of tools (for WinCE) that may also work on WinMo and help curious xda-devs figure out what's eating their memory...
http://blogs.msdn.com/ce_base/archive/2006/01/11/511883.aspx

ReadyBoost.. Worth using?

Finally decided to buy a new laptop to replace my old one. It came with Windows 8 (x64) pre-installed and 8GB DDR3 physical RAM.
My question is: Is it worth using ReadyBoost on the system?
Currently it only has a standard 5400rpm HDD, and an SSD isn't an option for the time being. I have a 16GB Class 10 UHS1 MicroSD card which I had dedicated to ReadyBoost, but after some digging, it seems like ReadyBoost is pretty much useless if the system has more than 1GB of physical RAM.
Sent from my GT-N7105
ReadyBoost is potentially useful with any amount of RAM, but the point at which it becomes useful varies depending on usage. If you only ever run one 2MB install footprint / 5MB working set program on Windows, 1GB of RAM is plenty and ReadyBoost won't help you; SuperFetch will happily cache that program in the handful of spare RAM that the system already has. If you run a ton of background processes that use up 6GB of RAM at all times, and then periodically want to run a program that has a 10GB install footprint, then 16GB of ReadyBoost (which is just SuperFetch cache) will dramatically improve the load times for that program.
Thanks for that. I've had my lappy for more than a month now and my RAM usage rarely goes above 20% (and never goes above 24%) so I don't think RB is necessary for me.
I also read on somewhere that ReadyBoost can wear out a device through constantly writing to it. Is that true? Can ReadyBoost do more harm than good?
Sent from my GT-N7105
I dont use RB, nor superfetch either..truth is i disable all but bare essentials.
Ive also heard that rumor, about excessive wear. Im sure there is some truth to that. Usage causes wear. Just how much wear I have no idea. Im sure it dont help mechanical drives...ssd's prolly dont bother them. *shrugs*
Best practice I have found is just to keep your system maintained, and clean of bloat/malware.
With todays hardware, gains im sure are marginal at best. Seriously you cant wait n extra second for that app to load?
Sent from my LG-E730 using xda app-developers app
@KCA.: In your case, I don't think you would benefit much from ReadyBoost, no. You can always add it later if you want, though. I mostly find it useful with games that have very large install footprints, as Flash memory reading is typically much faster than magnetic hard disk reading. However, reading from RAM is much faster still, and if you're only actively using up to about 2GB of your RAM, that means the other 6GB is already being used for a SuperFetch cache.
@13lack13ox: Your system, your choice of how to use it... but unless you're already seriously stressing out the capabilities of you hardware, caching (which is all that SuperFetch and ReadyBoost are) can significantly improve performance. On an old machine I had with 1280MB of RAM, loading Eve Online (which at the time had about a 2GB install footprint) took almost twenty seconds on Windows XP and only about six seconds on Vista (with a 2GB SD card being used for ReadyBoost) even though the system was massively above the XP minimum specifications and only slightly above the Vista ones. It's a much bigger difference than a mere extra second.
As for wear, it's true that RB will shorten the life of Flash storage. NAND Flash memory (the type used in all flashdrives, SD cards, SSDs, and so forth) has a limited number of write operations for a given block of storage, and ReadyBoost will probably write to your SD card much more often than it would be written to if it just sat in your camera or similar. However, the write limits for modern Flash storage are typically in the tens or hundreds of thousands of times, and the storage controllers use a technique called "wear leveling" to ensure that no portion of the storage gets burned out early. The SD card will almost certainly become obsolete due to size and speed well before ReadyBoost would wear it out, so if you want to use it for that purpose, go ahead.
13lack13ox said:
Best practice I have found is just to keep your system maintained, and clean of bloat/malware.
With todays hardware, gains im sure are marginal at best. Seriously you cant wait n extra second for that app to load?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol can't argue with that.
GoodDayToDie said:
@KCA.: In your case, I don't think you would benefit much from ReadyBoost, no. You can always add it later if you want, though. I mostly find it useful with games that have very large install footprints, as Flash memory reading is typically much faster than magnetic hard disk reading. However, reading from RAM is much faster still, and if you're only actively using up to about 2GB of your RAM, that means the other 6GB is already being used for a SuperFetch cache.
As for wear, it's true that RB will shorten the life of Flash storage. NAND Flash memory (the type used in all flashdrives, SD cards, SSDs, and so forth) has a limited number of write operations for a given block of storage, and ReadyBoost will probably write to your SD card much more often than it would be written to if it just sat in your camera or similar. However, the write limits for modern Flash storage are typically in the tens or hundreds of thousands of times, and the storage controllers use a technique called "wear leveling" to ensure that no portion of the storage gets burned out early. The SD card will almost certainly become obsolete due to size and speed well before ReadyBoost would wear it out, so if you want to use it for that purpose, go ahead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. I'll just leave it. Seems like the benefits are negligible.. A waste of a port
KCA. said:
Finally decided to buy a new laptop to replace my old one. It came with Windows 8 (x64) pre-installed and 8GB DDR3 physical RAM.
My question is: Is it worth using ReadyBoost on the system?
Currently it only has a standard 5400rpm HDD, and an SSD isn't an option for the time being. I have a 16GB Class 10 UHS1 MicroSD card which I had dedicated to ReadyBoost, but after some digging, it seems like ReadyBoost is pretty much useless if the system has more than 1GB of physical RAM.
Sent from my GT-N7105
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Readyboost uses high speed USB drives to swap kernel memory. If you have an SSD, there is no point. If you are using a conventional HDD, the readyboost will improve performance (that is why they made it). I use it on all my Windows 7 machines except my ultraportable, which has an SSD. With USB drives so cheap, why not? Of course, you need to make sure the USB drive supports ReadyBoost; not all of them have good enough performance.
Unless MS changed this since Vista, ReadyBoost does *NOT* swap kernel memory. ReadyBoost had a specific requirement that removing the device while it was in use shouldn't disrupt the system (even so far as crashing a program). Removing paged-out kernel memory would very quickly cause a BSOD. If you have any additional info, please do share it; I'm curious.
Now, it's possible that RB will act as a read cache (not a write cache, because any changes must be written down to disk) for the pagefile. In that case, it may still improve performance. However, what I read about it initially said it was simply additional SuperFetch cache (SF typically uses unallocated RAM to pre-load files that it expects you to need soon, based on past usage patterns, so that they are available instantly without waiting on disk access). For machine with limited RAM (or which load very large programs or files), SF can dramatically improve load times. RB storage, while not as fast as RAM, is still faster than disk access.
In any case, if you have gobs of RAM, ReadyBoost doesn't matter. The kernel won't be paging stuff out, so no need for a kernel swap cache. The pagefile won't be getting much use at all, in fact (some writes to "clean" changes in memory so it can be swapped out fast, but very few reads). Unless the files you access are large than your free RAM, they shouldn't slow anything down either.
GoodDayToDie said:
Unless MS changed this since Vista, ReadyBoost does *NOT* swap kernel memory. ReadyBoost had a specific requirement that removing the device while it was in use shouldn't disrupt the system (even so far as crashing a program). Removing paged-out kernel memory would very quickly cause a BSOD. If you have any additional info, please do share it; I'm curious.
Now, it's possible that RB will act as a read cache (not a write cache, because any changes must be written down to disk) for the pagefile. In that case, it may still improve performance. However, what I read about it initially said it was simply additional SuperFetch cache (SF typically uses unallocated RAM to pre-load files that it expects you to need soon, based on past usage patterns, so that they are available instantly without waiting on disk access). For machine with limited RAM (or which load very large programs or files), SF can dramatically improve load times. RB storage, while not as fast as RAM, is still faster than disk access.
In any case, if you have gobs of RAM, ReadyBoost doesn't matter. The kernel won't be paging stuff out, so no need for a kernel swap cache. The pagefile won't be getting much use at all, in fact (some writes to "clean" changes in memory so it can be swapped out fast, but very few reads). Unless the files you access are large than your free RAM, they shouldn't slow anything down either.
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OK, I should not have mentioned kernel. I found a short article that indicates it swaps out pieces of the software that would otherwise be swapped to the slower HDD. It will not crash because when it writes to the readyboost, it also writes to HDD - but it can read the readboost much faster than the HDD, so it increases performance when it has to pick up that data again. And the article mentions that more memory is better than readyboost (but I still use it on my Windows 7 machine with lots of memory).
Earlier explanations did not mention the pagefile, although that seems to be to be the better name for what is swapped. But I'm not sure about that. The early web postings indicated that it wrote parts of the Windows system that were frequently accessed.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx?Redirected=true
EDIT: From the Q&A it sounds like it is indeed the pagefile.
Cool, thanks for the link! Sounds like it does indeed act as a read cache. Very cool.
Still probably not a *big* boost on a machine with lots of RAM, but I expect it'll help anyhow.

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