Technical Win7+ReadyBoost question(s)

[rkaye]

Is there someone who understands readyboost in win7 (ultimate)? I have read as much as I can online about it, but still have questions... Following the MS guideline of using a readyboost device that is 1-3x your amount of ram, with minimum:
1. access time of 1ms or less
2. 2.5mb/s (or faster) non-sequential reads
3. 1.75mb/s non-sequential writes

Multiple RB devices can be used in win7...

Are there any published tests with >1 RB device? I'm curious how (for example) two (identical) 4gb RB devices would fair against one 8gb device? Two 8gb vs one 16gb? etc.

I'd be curious as to the results on all types of systems, although i'm mostly selfishly looking for how i should best configure my own system... (8gb ram) -- and the 'one to three times your ram' guideline, i'm guessing:
1. one 16gb RB, or
2. one 16gb RB and one 8gb RB
3. three 8gb RB (?)

Anyone have any real world experience with this? All I can offer is a 'best answer' award.


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[Jonmor68]

With 8GB of ram I doubt you will notice any improvement. Ready boost is ok if you are running a lot of programs and don't have enough memory. I doubt you will have a need to run that many applications at once, to need more then the 8GB you have, unless it's to say you can.

 

[ulysses35]

Forget readyboost - not really worth the hassle. If you really want to improve system performance then I suggest getting yourself one of the newer SSD's

Readyboost seems like an afterthought from MS after the poor performance of Vista and have left it as a carry over to Windows 7...

 

[sminlal]

Readyboost was designed so that people with insufficient RAM could use a flash drive to offload the pagefile. It was supposed to be a good idea because there is no seek time for flash memory, but in practice the relatively slow nature of the USB 2 protocol and writing to flash memory (compared to a hard drive) meant that performance gains were not very impressive.

Rather than worrying about ReadyBoost, you'd be a LOT better off just making sure you have enough RAM so that pagefile use is minimized. That applies to having the pagefile on hard drive, SSD, or using Readyboost. Accessing data in RAM is tens of thousands of times faster than even from an SSD, so for performance that's by far your best bang for the buck.

SSDs for the OS are still good investments if you're trying to minimize boot and application load times. But once everything's been loaded into memory they typically won't help much. That's where having enough RAM is important - to make sure the stuff that got loaded into memory isn't bumped back out again when you run something else.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

With an awesome rig like yours that i envy very much .your rig is turboosted you dont need ready boosted!

 

[JonathanDeane]

I have played with Ready boost quite a lot actually on Vista on a machine with really good specs 8GB's of RAM and all that, the thing I noticed the most was menu loading with a really full start menu. With Ready boost it was much faster to load the menu then with it off. Well much faster was probably like 1/10th of a second but I could tell the difference.

That 1/10th of a second was the difference between seeming instant and taking 1/10th of a second to load lol

I did not notice my applications load any faster or anything else but what I did notice was that context menu's and the start menu where faster and more responsive wich does make a difference in how you experience the OS and some tasks.

If you get a SD Card or a USB Flash Drive to test it with make sure to format the drive with the Panasonic format utility, I do not know what the heck it does but it makes flash devices run sooo much faster its not funny.

Edit: Well this page has a little info on why it makes them faster and also the download for it too

http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html

 

[mindless728]

with 8GB of ram, you don't need readyboost, as long as you don't have any programs that require pagefile, you could just turn it off

 

[Scotteq]

For the OP: At your level of installed RAM, Readyboost will offer you almost nothing in the way of improved performance. It is meant to serve as a backup plan for marginal systems - netbooks, and the like. You have a rather powerful gaming system, and don't need it.

with 8GB of ram, you don't need readyboost, as long as you don't have any programs that require pagefile, you could just turn it off

W/R T the first part: Readyboost is not Pagefile. It's an additional cache. WIth regards to shutting Pagefile off: I'm not entirely convinced this is true any longer... With XP, yeah, sure. But I've noticed no difference either way with Vista or W7, albeit I also have a rather generous amount of RAM. My understanding of the reasons there would be no difference is that since XP, Microsoft have improved memory management to the point where this is no longer necessary to force the OS to keep data in active RAM. Why? Because this is now the default behavior.



A short while back, I came across the below post explaining why we shouldn't bother with it any more, and since ht topic came up I'd be interested in people's thoughts. I'd start a new thread (and may later on when I get home), but my company's standard is IE6**, the only way I can respond is via the quick reply, and I'd like to not forget (for once). Anyways:


Regarding Pagefile:

*Source* http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/3236-memory-management-stress-testing-lol-i-love-7-a-2.html

We are now discussing which is faster at paging, RAM or HDD - the answer is obvious...RAM! What needs to be explained, is how using RAM-based-Paging affects the swapping process and ALL contents within the memory system.

Windows (Vista and beyond) will try to max out your memory usage with items that you consistently use. With this form of memory management, the purpose of paging is to keep a sorted list of all objects and relieve RAM of the more redundant objects. Think of a pagefile as being a clone of what's currently in RAM + what COULD be useful, but just isn't at that time. Even though they don't belong in the RAM, they still benefit by being sorted and kept in a special place. This is why having your pagefile located in the proper place can be important. Non-fragmented pagefiles located at the beginning of good-performing disks can ensure that our sorted data loads MUCH faster. Problem is, Microsoft's implementation of Pagefile-configuration doesn't include any automated quality-control. If your pagefile is scattered about or located in a low-performing location, it MAY - in some situations - increase the responsiveness of your PC by disabling the PF. However, you should note that overall it will be the opposite effect. Here’s why:

If you load up a program called 'Ms. Piggy', she's going to boss everyone around until they decide to go to another room (aka the pagefile). If the building has no other room (pagefile disabled), they're going to either leave the building completely, or partition the first room. This partitioning will cause Ms. Piggy to place her purse in the other room, and force all but the very-most-VIPs (if not everyone) to go home. When Ms Piggy’s number is over, we run into a problem... We will have to call up some cab drivers, get them to go to everybody's house and pick them and/or their stuff up and bring it back to the office. There will be traffic along the way, and maybe even a few jams…this may take a LONG, LONG TIME. On the other hand, had we actually had a pagefile - the VIPs could stick around and observe Ms Piggy's performance. At the moment it ended, the VIPs could’ve started working immediately. All the secondary staff and related files could also be brought back in from the nearby storage area. Maybe that storage area was located on another floor, maybe it was a mail-room, doesn’t really matter cause it still beats having to travel across town.

Again, EVERYONE should understand that this ONLY pertain to a Windows OS of Vista and beyond (greater than XP...). In windows XP, RAM is NOT properly used by the OS in any manner; Paging takes on a virtual-memory-like role as opposed to the queuing-role that is used in Vista and 7. BUT!!! Because XP doesn't use extended amounts RAM except when required, using that space as an enhanced-paging-file can be a possible way to trick Windows into keeping more objects inside RAM. This is why Disabling/enabling a PF in XP can be a matter of discussion, in Vista and up, it generally can-not.

XP: If you have LOTS of RAM...and aren't in threat of any programs going bonkers due to a lack of a large-PF - disabled can offer benefits.

'Vista and beyond': RAM should be filled down to 0MB free by the OS. Programs should load faster and quieter, PF usage handles all the tracking and relocation of lesser-used apps/data in the background. No benefits should be gained by disabling a PF.

The arguments of NO PF are based almost ENTIRELY on the XP loophole. It does not hold true for later operating systems.

**(yeah yeah - "Friends don't let friends use IE6" - but I work for b@stards, not my friends, so...)

 

[Guest]

I just installed a 16GB USB drive for Readyboost with a 3.2Ghz core2Quad system with 8GB of RAM.
I was curious if I would see any difference and I certainly do. The menus in office do come up quicker now. They seem instant now.
And my contact list is instant too. Before the contact list would be up but I couldn't access it for a few seconds, but now I can access it instantly. So it seems to have made a difference in my Win7 premium system. Although I'm not sure if I really needed 16GB. That was $38 for a SuperTalent Pico-C USBdrive while they had 8GB for around $21. At least they are extremely small so they are unobtrusive.

Now I'll try one in my TiVo Desktop box with Win7 Premium and see if that makes a difference.

 

[trevligsnubbe]

I have never played around with Readyboost but since I'm an old geek I have a question regarding RAMDRIVE in Windows7 (64)

I have a brand new dualcore laptop with 4Gb RAM with a possibility to upgrade to 8Gb...

Would it speed up the performance to purchase an extra 4Gb and set it up as a RAMDRIVE and put the swapfile (pagefile) there ?

Or should I just disable the swapfile and run without any on my 4Gb ? Or upgrade to 8Gb and run without swapfile ?

I never use more than maximum 40% of the 4Gb RAM since I mostly use standard applications (office, web, chat)...

What happens if i "hit the roof" and run without a swapfile ?

Hoping for serious answers...

 

[zappoblappo]

ReadyBoost for Windows 7 is definitely worth the cost even with a system that has 8GB of RAM

I have Windows 7 64-bit on a new quad core 3.4GHz AMD system with 4GB of RAM and I must say that ReadyBoost works great for speeding up the load time of often used applications (like Microsoft Office, Minecraft, etc.) The start time for Word and Excel is less than a second as compared to 4-7 seconds on an identical system that has no ReadyBoost, but with twice as much RAM (8GB).

To get this amazing performance improvement I'm using a "Patriot XPorter XT Boost 8GB USB2.0" thumb drive that has Read speed of 25MB/s and write speed of 8MB/s for just $15. (this is much faster than your usual standard thumbdrive...you can find similar recently introduced, high-speed thumb drives from a number of manufacturers that should work just as well).
To use the full amount of memory, you'll need to reformat the thumbdrive and choose the exFAT option with 16 kilobytes for an 8GB thumbdrive or 32 kilobytes for the 16GB thumbdrive.

There's some other advantages to using ReadyBoost with Windows 7. (Note: ReadyBoost was rewritten for Windows 7 and it is much faster and more useful than the older version was in Vista). Occasionally a service will want to store something to the hard drive, which might cause a very brief lag spike (even with the new multi-core processor load balancing of Windows 7). With ReadyBoost, I haven't experienced any lag spikes, even when playing games that peg at least two cores while running an app or two in the background. Operating System Boot up time also appears to be about 10-15% faster with ReadyBoost. Given the low cost of a thumbdrive it is totally worth it.

Caveat: If you have a laptop, ReadyBoost can help...but if you take out the thumbdrive while the laptop is in hibernate mode and forget to put it back in, you may see the blue screen of death. Apparently Windows 7 becomes addicted to it. Fortunately, restarting the system will resolve this problem, but all your apps will be closed as with all system restarts.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

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