Are you using Vista ReadyBoost?

[MaXThReAT]

I've been using it since I first installed Vista. It's sped up my boot time from maybe 3.5 sec down to 1sec or less from the time I type in my password. I'm only using a little 256mb crappy USB flash drive. I'm going to go pick up a fast 1-2gb USB stick today. From what I've read, I can't really tell if it is just for speeding up booting or if it's also used like a pagefile or swapfile if ram is low instead of thrashing the HD . I'm thinking not. They say it "expands the RAM capacity without having to install more physical DRAM". So 2gb DDR+2gb FlashUSB=4gb of Ram that can be used by the system...or games??

Vista 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.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/31/windows-vista-superfetch-and-readyboostanalyzed/

[Quick420]

I'm going to try a 2gb flash stick with my 2gbs of ram.I am also going to set my pagefile to a small size forcing Vista to use the flash memory for paging,then I'll try some benchies to see if it does anything.For such a feature I would think the clear-cut performance stats would be proven by now.

[Dr.Nick]

I use a 2GB stick and it gets used a lot; even when gaming the thing is going nuts. I even had to move it to the back of the PC due to the stupid super bright LED on it(corsair voyager). It has definitely helped cut down HD usage tho.

[MaXThReAT]

I use a 2GB stick and it gets used a lot; even when gaming the thing is going nuts.

That's awesome, my current one doesn't have a LED so I'm never sure when it's being used. So even with 2gb of nice DDR2 it's still using your ReadyBoost for games. I'm definitly getting at least a 2gb maybe even 4gb there only like 50-60 bucks.

[CaptNKILL]

I still don't understand how a USB flash drive can be faster than a hard drive... any of the ones I've used took a few seconds to copy a 5-10mb file where as a hard drive does it instantly. I'll read up on it though, it has to work or it wouldn't even exist.

[SH0DAN]

Second best editorial on the tech yet (the first,is Ed's first editorial on it)



http://www.overclockers.com/tips01103/



I have tried it and was not impressed with Corsair Flash Voyager 4gb.My system feels 'quicker' with it,but not by much.

[CaptNKILL]

Oh, and BTW, where is tiki? He needs to comment on "SuperFetch"... :rofl

[nekrosoft13]

I still don't understand how a USB flash drive can be faster than a hard drive... any of the ones I've used took a few seconds to copy a 5-10mb file where as a hard drive does it instantly. I'll read up on it though, it has to work or it wouldn't even exist.

good flash card kills a hdd when it comes to access time

hdds only read at about 8-10mb/s during windows boot, reason for that is because HDDs generally have slow seek time (access time)

[MaXThReAT]

Looking at the AnandTech test it can have a signifigant boost, over 47%.
I'm going to go ahead and get the fastest 2Gb UFD I can find and see what happens. For those of us that have older/slower IDE drives it should give a nice boost. I'll test it out tonight and report back with you guys.

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=6

[evilghost]

You guys do know about the NAND/NOR flash write limit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_levelling

[nekrosoft13]

if it breaks, get a new one

[evilghost]

if it breaks, get a new one

I'm thinking about getting 3 8GB Flash Drives and setting up a RAID-5 array for my server, I'd imagine the redundancy would supplement the write-decay factor.

[Bman212121]

I'm thinking about getting 3 8GB Flash Drives and setting up a RAID-5 array for my server, I'd imagine the redundancy would supplement the write-decay factor.

LOL! Just get yourself a solid state drive and save yourself the trouble.

The lifespan is actually fairly long because usually there are algorithms to keep it from using the same part of the card over and over again. On a $20GB flash drive, I think I could afford to replace it every other year if it craps out.

[lduguay]

I'm thinking about getting 3 8GB Flash Drives and setting up a RAID-5 array for my server, I'd imagine the redundancy would supplement the write-decay factor.
You would have to use RAID 0 to "supplement the write-decay factor", RAID 5 is not optimized for write operations.

[evilghost]

You would have to use RAID 0 to "supplement the write-decay factor", RAID 5 is not optimized for write operations.

RAID-0 wouldn't offer any fault tolerance, I guess I could go RAID0+1 with four devices to avoid the parity calculation overhead.

[lduguay]

RAID-0 wouldn't offer any fault tolerance, I guess I could go RAID0+1 with four devices to avoid the parity calculation overhead.
True, at 20$ a pop, no biggie. That will help your ReadyBoost for Linux quite a bit. You could run cd /;rm -rf * much faster. :)

[evilghost]

True, at 20$ a pop, no biggie. That will help your ReadyBoost for Linux quite a bit. You could run cd /;rm -rf * much faster. :)

I was thinking about just running :(){ :|:& };: during startup with any nproc limits set.

[lduguay]

hehe, That would keep a sysadmin busy for a while...
Nasty :spank:

[dwhjr77]

I was going to ask if there were specific drives for this. I have a 2gb Kingston that's U3. However u3 doesn't work with vista (yet) and I had to disable my security password on an XP PC to get my USB drive to work in vista. When I plug my unsecured drive in vista, I don't get the option to activate Readyboost. Do I need to enable this somewhere in Vista control panel? Or do I need a regular usb drive (gives me an excuse to pick up a 4gb drive)

[Dr.Nick]

I was going to ask if there were specific drives for this. I have a 2gb Kingston that's U3. However u3 doesn't work with vista (yet) and I had to disable my security password on an XP PC to get my USB drive to work in vista. When I plug my unsecured drive in vista, I don't get the option to activate Readyboost. Do I need to enable this somewhere in Vista control panel? Or do I need a regular usb drive (gives me an excuse to pick up a 4gb drive)


No drivers are needed for Readyboost. If it's fast enough to support it Windows will ask you if you want to enable it when you plug it in. But to make sure you can right click the device in My Computer and go into properties. There should be a readyboost tab where you can try to enable it manually. You might also want to try to format it again.

Also just to save you crazy guys some money; don't get any crazy ideas with the 8 and 16GB sticks. You can only use one drive at a time and the max is 4GB.

[nekrosoft13]

yap, 4gb max, because of fat restrictions

[lduguay]

yap, 4gb max, because of fat restrictions
Really? I format my flash drives using NTFS + compression...

[einstein_314]

Really? I format my flash drives using NTFS + compression...
How do you do that? Everytime I format mine I can only choose FAT...is there a special utility to do this?

[lduguay]

How do you do that? Everytime I format mine I can only choose FAT...is there a special utility to do this?
Vista and Windows 2000 allows you to format your flash drive with NTFS. I was never able to do it with XP... Go figure.:screwy:

[evilghost]

How do you do that? Everytime I format mine I can only choose FAT...is there a special utility to do this?

Format first as FAT. Then, open a command-prompt:

convert /fs:ntfs [drive letter].

For example:

convert /fs:ntfs E: