ReadyBoost - Using Your USB Key to Speed Up Windows Vista
One very cool feature of Windows Vista – especially for machines not natively equipped with the kind of horsepower to fully enjoy the rich visuals of Windows Presentation Foundation (Avalon) applications is ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost enables you to plug a USB key into your machine and have Windows Vista use it as memory. I hadn’t actually used this myself, but had heard of it long ago. When a reader emailed me asking if this was an urban legend, I decided to check it out for myself and was very impressed with how easy and seamless the process is.
Installing/Configuring the USB Key as Memory
First I took a standard USB 2.0 key (I’ll list the prerequisites shortly) and plugged it into my machine. I’m running Windows Vista Beta 2, Build 5346, but I’m told that this works with the latest CTP made available to beta and TAP members as well as MSDN Subscribers. Upon plugging the USB key into my computer, I was greeted with the standard "AutoPlay" dialog box asking how I wanted to the operating system to treat the USB key. However, with ReadyBoost I get the additional option (circled below in the screen capture) of using the key to "speed up my system".
Once I click the "Speed up my system" option, the Properties dialog box for the device is displayed where I can specify to start/stop ReadyBoost usage of the device and how much space I want used as a memory cache. (Actually, according to one of the Product Specialists here, this space is used more as a flash-based page file than true RAM, but the impact is that the more space you choose here, the more benefit you’ll get in terms of overall system performance.)
(In order to return to this dialog box, open the Computer window, right-click the drive (F: in this case) and select Properties. From there, click the Memory tab (as shown in the previous screen capture and adjust the settings as needed).
For the inquisitive, opening the drive in an Explorer window reveals that ReadyBoost has created a cache file of the specified size.
Things to Know About ReadyBoost
If you have a USB key configured to use ReadyBoost and then insert a second key, Windows Vista will display the Properties dialog box where you’ll see the message on the Memory tab as shown in the following screen capture.
While ReadyBoost will work with other devices – such as SD Card, CompactFlash, etc. – I’ve only used it with a USB key and here are the baseline requirements the team gave me regarding what ReadyBoost will work with:
- The USB Key must be at least USB 2.0
- The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device.
- The USB Key has to have at least 64mb of free space
Update: Due to so many questions about this feature, I've tracked down the Program Manager (owner) of this feature - Matt Ayers. Matt has put together a complete ReadyBoost FAQ for everyone that I've posted in a separate blog entry.
Therefore, feel free to make comments here, but if you have any questions, first check out the FAQ and if it's not answered there, post me a question and I'll see if Matt can update the FAQ with your question/answer.
Comments
Anonymous
April 14, 2006
Thanks Tom! I have been looking for this info for a very long time. Now I can see why my SD and Sony Memory Stick does not work, none of them get even closer to 3.5 MB/s
Time to go to Frys to get a 1 GB USB 2. Wait, need to check if my laptop USB are 2.0!! Maybe when I am at Frys I'll check for better hardware, is not that what Vista wants, make us all purchase new computers? :-)
Again, thanks Tom for the fast info into this issue.
AlAnonymous
April 14, 2006
One very cool feature of Windows Vista – especially for machines not natively equipped with the...Anonymous
April 14, 2006
So what happens when you yank the USB key out of the USB port?Anonymous
April 16, 2006
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April 16, 2006
Rosyna: What happens when you "yank" memory - or any other devices - out of your running machine? Who knows? Not exactly recommended. That's why you have a tray app to remove devices - so that the system can properly stop using those devices and write any data that has been cached.Anonymous
April 16, 2006
Lapi, notice it says 3.5 MB/s for RANDOM reads. I don't know of any hard drive that can read that fast at random.Anonymous
April 16, 2006
Eli, I think that random here is the same random as in RAM (random means at a random location, i.e. to access any address the time required is the same)Anonymous
April 17, 2006
How about turning off Avalon?! I like appealing visual styles a lot, don't get me wrong, but after using XP on Pentium 2s @ 333MHz and with only 128 MB RAM, I started turning off the XP styles and deactivated the design service in order to speed up things a little...Anonymous
April 17, 2006
@ Lapi
We already can have multiple swap files on different partitions and therefore phisical drives. Many users, anyway, don't have more than one HDD.Anonymous
April 19, 2006
That's a bit of a let down. When I first read about the feature I pictured a 4 port USB hub with 2GB sticks in each slot giving a massive cache to really boost the operating system. I wonder why it has been limited to one?Anonymous
April 20, 2006
I really agree with you steve not only that but it would be nice to get all of the swap off the HDD to a faster device without using alot of memory. Maybe use like 1GB or even 512MB and the rest on thumb drives... Even a 2GB thumb drive should do just fine forever.Anonymous
April 24, 2006
I would have to agree with Lapi. This feature is cool, but not particularly useful at this moment in time. It would probably suit the user better to just upgrade their RAM. However, I am guessing that improvements to USB are forthcoming and this will become more practical.Anonymous
April 24, 2006
Capture By George! is an advanced Windows screen capture application that offers an easy and intuitive method of making screen captures.
http://www.yaodownload.com/video-design/screencapture/capture-by-george_screencapture.htmAnonymous
April 25, 2006
uooAnonymous
April 25, 2006
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April 30, 2006
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April 30, 2006
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May 01, 2006
>> It would probably suit the user better to just upgrade their RAM.
One thing worth considering is a business environment where there is no business-condoned option to enhance the hardware but you really need more headroom to effectively work. Just pop in your own USB stick (if they haven't previously gone and disabled the USB ports) and voila, you can get some work done (or get it done faster).Anonymous
May 01, 2006
i agree with remford..
ofcourse its better to upgrade your ram. the argument about harddrives beeing faulty as we are talking about random accsess here.. pages beeing swapped. not alot of seqencial stuff goin on there.. also he listed the MINIMUM reqs. usb2 is alot faster than 3.5 mbs/sec
this feature is prolly aimed at laptops were memory is expensive and harddrives usualy slow. at least on a system that does not have enuf memory for vista already.
so microsoft, please ignore this whiners and keep up the good workAnonymous
May 02, 2006
Just a question: is there an official roadmap for Windows Vista? I searched almost everywhere and I couldn't find it.
Thanks.Anonymous
May 02, 2006
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May 03, 2006
Why are you guys removing posts which are unpleasant?
What is it for then? To show only covenient posts so that people buy it as a great product?Anonymous
May 04, 2006
Will it support all USB drives, regardless of how they are ID'd to the OS ("hard disk drive" or "Device with Removable Storage")?Anonymous
May 04, 2006
This seems like the same thing as swap, err... "Virtual Memory" to me.Anonymous
May 06, 2006
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May 07, 2006
will it just be usb keys or would you be able to plug in say a normal usb 2.0 hard drive of a few gb?Anonymous
May 07, 2006
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May 08, 2006
I agree to the fullest with Remford.
Now, come on. The same protest were made when XP launched. (Though people decided to deactivate a lot of features in XP to make it run smooth.)
We are in fact moving into a new age of computer technology and we will addapt to improved requirements. Just as games?, anybody that have bought a new graphic card to run a brand new game??? Doom III - enthusiast, raise your hands. Or did u change resolution? Haha...
This is a great way to boost your system performance, and I would have been dissapointed if it didn't work at all.
And another point... Vista releases in dec-2006. Were were USB-sticks back in beg. of 2005?
PS. Pardon my english. I'm swedish.
PS2. Im ready for vista with 64-bit and all :)Anonymous
May 08, 2006
Some think comments are anti-microsoft. Others realize comments are not so much anti-microsoft so much as constructive critisism. Microsoft has come a long way.... but some anti-microsoft / constructive critisism continues to go unresolved. Things like the fact that Microsoft (continuing again with Vista) has always been the most unsecure, unstable, unscaleable, monopolistic tactic driven OS provider.
They don't even seem to care since they've got a good marketing department that lies to public and does a great job selling. We've all got a love-hate relationship with Microsoft eh?Anonymous
May 08, 2006
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May 09, 2006
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May 10, 2006
lev: The only posts I've intentionally removed are those that where one person has used inappropriate language or attacked another poster. I have absolutely no problem - and even welcome - contradictory opinions.
If you feel like I've unfairly removed a comment of yours, please let me know by emailing me directly and I'll definitely reconsider putting it back in. (It might just be that I misunderstood something you said or simply removed a comment by mistake.)Anonymous
May 11, 2006
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May 12, 2006
Interesting article. I am looking forward to see this feature work.Anonymous
May 14, 2006
And I think that the most efficient Microsoft OS is Windows 98. I know that it is not a "true 32 bit" but the fact that it implements full win32 API is enough for me.
I'm using it and believe me - it works like a charm on the modern hardware.Anonymous
May 14, 2006
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May 15, 2006
I found out about this new technology over at http://www.vistaultimate.com
My question is with memory prices so low and hard disk capacity increasing (i.e. use swap file), why should Microsoft even bother with ReadyBoost?Anonymous
May 15, 2006
morg: You're exactly right. It's basically using a very cheap device that any end-user can easily plug into their machine for virtual memory. This greatly enables people who either don't want to purchase more costly memory or who can't/don't desire to get into their machines to upgrade their hardware a means of drastically improving performance at a very low cost.Anonymous
May 15, 2006
I have been using a Lexar 1GB Jumpdrive to boost my notepad and it works great, allowing effective RAM well above the 1GB installed and much faster than the HDD swap file. I look forward to any refinements Ms can make in this feature in upcoming builds.Anonymous
May 15, 2006
PingBack from http://www.msblog.org/?p=635Anonymous
May 17, 2006
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May 20, 2006
Tom:
These:
The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device.
The USB Key has to have at least 64mb of free space
numbers are not the numbers that Matt Ayers was giving out last week on a Vista TAP programme webcast. Tom's numbers were 2.5 and 1.75 (same scenerios) with 256MB free.
I can also confirm that Vista 5381 does not work with a 64MB memory stick or even a 256MB one that does not have 256MB free.
FWIW
:JAnonymous
May 20, 2006
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May 20, 2006
I think that they have come up with an excellent idea here as most cpu's ram are expandable only up to a certain size(mines only 2 gig) and with the usb devices getting bigger and better all of the time it won't be long until you can affordably get a 10 or 20 gig usb device.Can you imagine how good that would improve your system 20 gig ram!!!I really think they should make it so it will work with multiple usb devices though, so we can plug in a few 2 gig ones and get a 6 or 8 gig ram going until the 20 gig ones are avaliable.I think they should also put out an update patch for the windows xp system users so they can do the same as not everyone will be converting to vista right away due to availability and price.Anonymous
May 22, 2006
Can you also use a Mp3player to speed up your system? I don´t have an USB-Stick, neither Windows Vista, so I can't try it on my own.Anonymous
May 22, 2006
I have tried multiple thumb drives to make an attempt to use the readyboost feature. both have sent vista complaining that they don't have the performance specs, but i know they do b/c of the packaging. is this something we can hope to see resolved or partially resolved with the coming release of beta 2?Anonymous
May 23, 2006
Can we plug in a PDA and use both its memory and CPU for extra processing? Furthermore, can we do this easily with multiple desktop machines? This would greatly shorten my video editing batch process time.Anonymous
May 23, 2006
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May 24, 2006
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May 24, 2006
I think the simple reason for readyboost is to encourage people to try Vista even though their system only has the bare minimum of ram to run Vista (256mb). Having a page file on usb should help performance.
I am surprised that people like Dell are still shipping PCs with 256mb ram instead of 512mb or even 1GB -- for the LOWEST spec'd pc. They should ship a base ram of at least 512mb for even the cheap 299 dollar machines.Anonymous
May 25, 2006
How much of a "speed increase" are we really talking about here? Are you really going to see it for that everyday use machine or would this be more for games, graphics, and development applications that eat up a lot of memory? Also couldn't this potentially be a security risk whereas personal/private/corporate information could be put on the USB Key, and then someone comes along and swipes it. Of course the person who took it would have to go through and decipher the cached information, but it's technically possible isn't it?Anonymous
May 25, 2006
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May 27, 2006
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May 30, 2006
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June 03, 2006
*** Update: *** Due to so many questions about this feature, I've tracked down the Program Manager (owner) of this feature - Matt Ayers. Matt has put together a complete ReadyBoost FAQ for everyone that I've posted in a separate blog entry. http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx Therefore, feel free to make comments here, but if you have any questions, first check out the FAQ and if it's not answered there, post me a question and I'll see if Matt can update the FAQ with your question/answer.Anonymous
June 05, 2006
Does it speed up games?Anonymous
June 10, 2006
Readyboost is built into new hybrid hard drives if i'm not mistaken so USB stick support is just an added bonus for those that bought in with USB storage devices as well.Anonymous
June 12, 2006
Hi,
I am running the VISTA OS on Microsoft Virtual PC and due to this its unable the detect the USB Key that I plug into the machine. Does anyone know how I can get around this.
Thanks
Arjuna.Anonymous
June 23, 2006
PingBack from http://newyear2006.wordpress.com/2006/06/24/readyboost-zur-performancesteigerung-unter-vista/Anonymous
June 30, 2006
I have a laptop that is a little challenged to run windows XP so I run win 98SE on it. (Fujitsu Lifebook C6530 500 mhz, 196 MB Ram (max).)
Something like readyboost for windows XP would probably give it enough improvement to run XP as well as it runs win 98 SE.
Does any one know of any app that offers similar capability to readyboost.
GeorgeAnonymous
July 27, 2006
PingBack from http://www.theserverpimp.com/?p=7Anonymous
July 31, 2006
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July 31, 2006
都知道Windows Vista是个“吃粮大户”，微软官方网站的说法是Windows Vista的最低安装需求是512MB内存。有经验的读者朋友都知道，所谓的最低安装需求往往不足为信，例如微软曾经号称64MB的内存就已经足够“迎娶”Windows...Anonymous
August 05, 2006
PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspxAnonymous
September 22, 2006
This week I went out to Harris Technology and got myself a 2GB USB Key. It was a good price so I couldn't...Anonymous
September 28, 2006
I have not had the pleasure/pain of Vista yet (I do really think it will be great when it is released)...Anonymous
September 28, 2006
Get ready for a long list of large affordable USB drives as well as Window's Vista's Ready Boost feature.Anonymous
October 04, 2006
One of the favorite enterprise features of Microsoft® Windows Vista™, USB device installations, getsAnonymous
October 26, 2006
Mi amigo Juan Luis, siempre se queja que tiene poca RAM en su Dell yo me asustaría mas porqueAnonymous
November 10, 2006
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November 20, 2006
If there is one thing that can really help applications on Windows Vista run better, it's memory. WhenAnonymous
November 20, 2006
If there is one thing that can really help applications on Windows Vista run better, it's memory. When comparing the performance of Windows XP and Windows Vista on a PC with 1 GB of main memory, Windows Vista is generally comparable to Windows XP or faster.Anonymous
November 20, 2006
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January 23, 2007
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Well after being caught up in the Windows Vista hype last weekend I finally installed Windows Vista on Thursday. I was very excited except for me Vista is not ready for prime time. I have two computers at home, one...Anonymous
February 10, 2007
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February 12, 2007
Moderatoren: Matthias Niess und Timon Royer Themen: Hybridfestplatten und Windows Vista Nie wieder Passwörter merken Mashups, was ist das eigentlich? Gibt es bald wieder Musik ohne Rechtemanagement? weitere Themen in den Shownotes Moderatoren:Anonymous
February 12, 2007
Moderatoren: Matthias Niess und Timon Royer Themen: Hybridfestplatten und Windows Vista Nie wieder Passwörter merken Mashups, was ist das eigentlich? Gibt es bald wieder Musik ohne Rechtemanagement? weitere Themen in den Shownotes ModerAnonymous
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Back in April, I posted a blog entry on the ReadyBoost feature - the Windows Vista feature that allowsAnonymous
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Like any other operating system Vista performs pretty nicely if you've got enough RAM, but sometimesAnonymous
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