I'm ready for a boost

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This week I went out to Harris Technology and got myself a 2GB USB Key. It was a good price so I couldn't resist.

My intention was to get it plugged into my Windows Vista system and see what ReadyBoost could do for me.

I plugged it in and got the "Speed Up My System" option

AutoPlay dialog box displayed when a valid USB Key is inserted into a machine running Windows Vista

But after I selected that option, the device failed the test (said the device was too slow) and I didn't get my boost.

What The?  I thought I bought a high speed USB device.

I went looking on the web for some information

I found Tom Archer's blog, in which he had a few posts on ReadyBoost - ReadyBoost - Using Your USB Key to Speed Up Windows Vista and ReadyBoost Q&A 

Q: What perf do you need on your device?
A: 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writes
Q: My device says 12MB/sec (or 133x or something else) on the package but windows says that it isn't fast enough to use as a ReadyBoost device... why?
A: Two possible reasons:

  1. The numbers measure sequential performance and we measure random. We've seen devices that have great sequential perf, but horrible random
  2. The performance isn't consistantly fast across the entire device. Some devices have 128M of lightning fast flash and the rest of the device is really slow. This is fine for some applications but not ReadyBoost.

Hmm - informative but doesn't solve my problem.

Then I spotted the article, USB Flash Memory for Windows Vista ReadyBoost in which they road test a number of USB Flash Memory keys.

The tests didnt include the one I had, but they did test one which I considered buying, Sandisk Cruzer Titanium, and it passed the test. It's speed specs are 15MB/s read speed and 9MB/s write speed.  The one I got has the specs of 10MByte/s read speed and 5Mbytes/s write speed. It seems like it would be fast enought, but my system rejected it. (from Sandisk's comparison page)

Did I buy a dude? Maybe for ReadyBoost. On the plus side, It's still handy have a 2GB USB Flash Drive.

[ Current Listening to : Mind's Eye by Wolfmother from Wolfmother ]