ReadyBoost — A Helping Hand to Vista PCs?
Some people are into the cool factors when they talk tech about their new Vista PCs. One of those cool features is called ReadyBoost. So what is ReadyBoost and why is it one of the cool factors in Vista?
ReadyBoost is a Windows Vista OS feature that enables computer users to plug in a USB jump drive to their PC and use it as memory. Technically, ReadyBoost is an external memory device architecture that allows Vista to retrieve prefetched data from a virtual memory page file and move it to physical memory as soon as possible to ensure the continuity of performance in the operating system. Since page files exists on the hard disk, which is less responsive than physical memory, ReadyBoost is still going to be hindered by the time that is takes the hard disk to respond to its retrieval operation. To overcome this potential performance degradation, ReadyBoost will monitor prefetched data that is sent to virtual memory and redirect it to a more responsive memory device — like a USB jump drive or compact flash memory.
For most Vista computer users, using ReadyBoost will consist of buying a USB 2.0 jump drive and plugging it into their PC running Vista. Upon plugging the USB drive into their computer, Vista will present the standard AutoPlay dialog box asking how the operating system should use the USB jump drive. ReadyBoost gives Vista users the option to “speed up my system”. The Vista user is asked how much space to use as a memory cache. Generally speaking, the more space selected for ReadyBoost, the greater the benefit in overall system performance.
In order Vista PCs to use ReadyBoost, there are some basic guidelines to follow. Vista requires the use of a USB 2.0 specified jump drive. The USB device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device. The USB device must have at least 64 MB of free space.
This article was written by Perry Lund on Tuesday, May 22, 2007. Permalink.