Use any USB stick to ReadyBoost your computer

[Dashken]

Got a USB stick that Windows Vista doesn't want to use for memory? Read how to use it anyway.
By chris on 22 March 2007

Sooner or later, everyone's computer tends to slow down. Call it old age or simply doing too much, but even the most cutting edge PC's seem to lag after a year or so of use.

For those who aren't keen on opening up their PC to put in more memory, Windows Vista has a handy little feature called ReadyBoost that can use USB sticks for additional memory. Unfortunately, Windows Vista doesn't take kindly to the slower sticks on the market and refuses to use them. Proving once again that we control the computer and not the other way around, here's four simple steps to get around this limitation and use any USB stick you have to increase your computers memory.


1. Setup

First things first. Plug the device in. Ignore AutoPlay if you have the enabled, and go to Computer in the start menu. When it pops up, right-click the USB stick and select properties.


2. Disable the stick

Click on the Readyboost tab on the properties menu and check Do not restest this device. Click okay and unplug the stick from your computer.


3. Edit the registry!

Woah! Don't panic, it's not as frightening as it sounds. Firstly, you need to open regedit, by opening the start menu and typing regedit, then enter. The registry window should load up.

Using the left-hand pane, work your way through the following folders: HKLM (Local Machine) -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows NT -> CurrentVersion -> EMDgmt. You'll have a list of USB devices the computer has encountered, one of which should be your USB stick. Click on it.

Here there's a few details you need to edit. Double click on Device Status and change the value to 2, then ok. Do the same for ReadSpeedKBs and WriteSpeedKBs, changing their values to both 1000. Exit the regedit and breathe a sigh of relief.


4. And back in again

Now all that's left to do is put the stick back in and once again go to the device properties (Computer > Right-click on drive). If you look under the Readyboost Tab, you'll be able to now select Use this device. Success! Now enjoy your faster PC.

Source: http://www.windowsvistamagazine.com/...-computer.html

Is this posted yet? Nice tweak?

[hyper_raider]

Oh i actually read this somewhere before

[Adrian Wong]

Oh, well, this tip is just to enable ReadyBoost for flash drives that don't pass the test.

Frankly, ReadyBoost is a bit odd. Even fast USB flash drives can fail the test. I really have no idea what performance criteria Microsoft is basing its tests on.

[zy]

so .. i can plug in 4gb high speed USB 2.0 device ? ;p

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Dashken

Is this posted yet? Nice tweak?

The thing is, the restriction was put so that only flash drives which passed the test would provide a more noticeable 'boost' compared to flash drives that fail the test and if enabled, probably wouldn't give such a noticeable 'boost'

Adrian, the fast they're referring to are random reads and writes, not the sequential reads or writes we usually consider while transferring large files(e.g. photos from digital cameras)

http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/arch...02/615199.aspx

I'm not sure whether this article explains it or not, but I found it to be very useful to see which flash drive provides the best ReadyBoost performance(well in the sense that it's random reads and writes are faster than the competition).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...h-roundup.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...h-roundup.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...h-roundup.html

(and no I don't own a PC with vista, so I've no idea what noticeable 'boost' ReadyBoost gives)

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by Brian

The thing is, the restriction was put so that only flash drives which passed the test would provide a more noticeable 'boost' compared to flash drives that fail the test and if enabled, probably wouldn't give such a noticeable 'boost'

Adrian, the fast they're referring to are random reads and writes, not the sequential reads or writes we usually consider while transferring large files(e.g. photos from digital cameras)

http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/arch...02/615199.aspx

I'm not sure whether this article explains it or not, but I found it to be very useful to see which flash drive provides the best ReadyBoost performance(well in the sense that it's random reads and writes are faster than the competition).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...h-roundup.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...h-roundup.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...h-roundup.html

(and no I don't own a PC with vista, so I've no idea what noticeable 'boost' ReadyBoost gives)

Actually, flash memory, by design, is always fast at random reads and writes. Why? There's no mechanical read/write head to move around.

Random access in flash drives is virtually instant, which makes it more like RAM, rather than a hard drive. Every cell in the flash memory requires the same small latency to access.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Adrian Wong

Actually, flash memory, by design, is always fast at random reads and writes. Why? There's no mechanical read/write head to move around.

Random access in flash drives is virtually instant, which makes it more like RAM, rather than a hard drive. Every cell in the flash memory requires the same small latency to access.

Adrian, that's the latency, it's true that the latency for a flash drive is very very small, but if you look at the random writes for this set of 4gb flash drives, you'll notice a huge variation between the random write speeds. yes, I do realise that it's still huge compared to a hard drive, but I do wonder whether you're actually able to notice the difference if the random reads and writes were below their set benchmark(on a typical new PC with 1gb ram and blah)(anyone willing to participate in a double blind test?)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...oundup_12.html

[Adrian Wong]

Well, the effect would depend on the system. The more RAM you have, the less effect ReadyBoost will have.

[The_YongGrand]

Just curious, I'm pretty sure that one RAM stick is much faster than one flash stick. A flash stick is only USB 2.0 and maybe the data transfer is much lesser...

[Chai]

Originally Posted by The_YongGrand

Just curious, I'm pretty sure that one RAM stick is much faster than one flash stick. A flash stick is only USB 2.0 and maybe the data transfer is much lesser...

The transfer rate is calculated in MB instead of GB...