Best USB Readyboost

[davidmac6]

I have an issue. The computer I work with only has 4GB of ram. I am not able to upgrade as the OS is a 32bit version of Windows 7. The in house software we work with regularly throws an 'Exception, out of memory error'. As our options are limited we have decided to try use a USB Flash Drive and enable Readyboost to try help alleviate this problem. Could anyone recommend a good USB Flash Drive? I was thinking something like this, http:// Any input would be greatly appreciated. Also, upgrading or purchasing a new computer is not an option.
Thank you.

 

[Luminary]

Amazingly enough, that is exactly the drive I was going to recommend.

We have a few very old Windows boxes at work that we've equipped with that exact model and it's worked great. We've had them in place for several years now and have had no issues whatsoever. That's a very good bang for you buck in terms of reliable USB at the moment. You really don't need anything faster than the Extreme, and 16GB is plenty of space.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Readyboost , will not provide any real world results , in terms of performance.

 

[Luminary]

Anandtech showed it had a great improvement here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2163/6

Now that's for Vista, but a 32-bit Windows machine with little memory should benefit just as much. Once you get past a certain amount of RAM though, yes, it doesn't help.

 

[geofelt]

Your problem is "out of memory"
Not app performance.
Best to look first at such things as started tasks and other items tat are loaded into ram and eliminate them.

Look into your bios for such options as PAE ( Physical address extension)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366796(v=vs.85).aspx

In a 32 bit version, the normal amount of user address space available will be 2gb; the remainder was originally reserved for windows functions.
If the app is properly coded, that can be increased to 3gb. Look for such a configuration option.

Readyboost was designed before the advent of the SSD, and was useful only for faster loading of small files.
The small latency of a usb was better than a hard drive.
With today's fast ssd devices, you will be much better off using a ssd for windows and your apps.
Samsung has a nice ssd migration utility which will move your "C" drive to their ssd.

 

[USAFRet]

Anandtech showed it had a great improvement here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2163/6

Now that's for Vista, but a 32-bit Windows machine with little memory should benefit just as much. Once you get past a certain amount of RAM though, yes, it doesn't help.

That's a 10 year old test, comparing a ReadyBoosted system against having 512MB of system RAM.
Not valid today.

 

[Luminary]

It was simply to display that there are circumstances where ReadyBoost might be slightly helpful, and on machines running Win 7 -32 bit the limitations on RAM are still not a far cry from that test. That's really all the article was linked for, I'm not trying to lobby for it on every modern system.

Besides, Geofelt addressed the root issue more effectively.