Talk:ReadyBoost

message: Guys can you see the ReadyBoost in latest updated Windows 10? Even the Task Manager is not displaying the drive in use in the Performance tab.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.33.146.12 (talk) 02:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Latest Windows 10

message: "ReadyBoost is"
Good start.  I'm liking this so far.
"a component of Microsoft Windows,"
Oh.  Thanks so much.  That clears everything up.
"first introduced with Windows 95b in 1995 and also included with Windows 8. It works by using gash memory, USB 5.0 drive, yD card, zompactFlash or any kind of portable flesh mess storage holes as a drive for disk cache."
Great, but what does it do?
"It reads your computers bank files to display them publicly if you are a bad boy."
Great, but what does it do?
76.201.140.120 (talk) 06:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: What does it do?

message: I'm interested in knowing why exactly this method is faster than an old-fashioned HD swap file and how much faster it really is. this line:
"ReadyBoost includes logic to recognize large, sequential read requests and then allows these requests to be serviced by the hard drive." means absolutely nothing to me...
:As stated, it isn't just for the swapfile, it is basically an index to the entire hard drive. Small, random reads are cached and serviced by the USB stick, which is faster for random access, and larger sequential reads are passed to the HD, which are faster for sequential access. 67.169.183.167 03:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the reply above. The time to read some data is the sum of the seek time and the transfer time. The seek time does not depend on the amount of data being requested (assuming the data isn't fragmented) but the transfer time is roughly proportional to the amount of data. Therefore, for small amounts of data, transfer time is much smaller than seek time, so seek time is what matters. A careful reading of the article explains that modern USB 2.0 flash drives have a "seek time" speed advantage over hard disks, about 1 millisecond for flash compared to about 10 milliseconds for hard disk. This means it is faster to fetch a small amount of data from a flash drive than from a hard disk (assuming the data is on the flash drive). The article also implies that in the future, if sequential read speeds--the inverse of transfer times--of flash drives catch up to or surpass sequential read speeds of hard disks--in other words, USB 3.0 and faster flash--then flash drives would become faster than hard disks regardless of the amount of data being requested. SEppley (talk) 18:51, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Interested in knowing

message: Does the drive need to be U3 enabled for Readyboost compatibility? --Somedude
: No. I have a generic 256 MB stick (that I've removed the cover from, indeed - the bare circuitry and red LED look pretty...interesting) from a vendor demo a year or so ago that works fine as a ReadyBoost device. I also have a 2GB U3 drive that works. Jonathon Barton 10:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: U3

message: On the one hand: this could be quite cool, and i'm not sure about the "slow performance of flash memory" arguments. I've actually been linked to this page via a review in an online store where someone noted that the SD card I was looking at was "the first one i've found that works with Vista ReadyBoost"... the card in question is certified for 133x transfer, or a sliver under 20mb/sec. Which isn't far off my (5400rpm) laptop HD's peak transfer rate, and I'll bet its a heck of a lot quicker and more efficient at the "thrash"-style seek & read inherent in memory paging even for a 10krpm desktop SATA drive. It's probably about as-quick as the EDO RAM in some of the old Pentiums I'm playing at salvaging, and will certainly be as quick as the "using spare RAM on networked PCs" idea, unless everyone's using Gigabit ethernet... (full duplex 100BaseT ethernet - 200mbit/sec or thereabouts - will have an absolute max transfer rate of about 25mb/s, and that's highly unlikely to be seen in practie, whereas I've seen even lower-rated "50x" SD cards blaze along slightly above spec when copying off digital photos)
On the other hand, regardless of how cheap that 2Gb SD card is... I can probably now get a 100x faster RAM upgrade of similar capacity for similar money, and if I could convince her to pay attention, even my mother... no, my grandmother could install the sticks herself. So it's a lazy/ignorant person's way of getting an easy, if low-performance memory boost.
The interface itself will probably come in as a factor before too long in this idea, incidentally; a high-speed CompactFlash card I've substituted in place as the hard disc in an old laptop considerably underperforms compared to it's spec (several times slower), and isn't appreciably faster than the original HD, merely more efficient. In this case I'm pretty certain it's the very poor IDE interface (not even sure if it's DMA) in the machine holding everything up, as it is of an age where Windows 3.1 was common, and it was probably shipped with 95 as an afterthought... so high performance (over 2mb/sec..) wasn't so much of an issue. Standard IDE cables top out at 33mb/s, 80-wire PATA at 133mb/s, and SATA around 300mb/s so far... the USB 2.0 buses (whether connected external for a pendrive, or internal for a memory card reader) these flash devices will plug into top out at 60mb/s, assuming there's no other significant traffic on the same host adaptor or on the PCI bus; memory and hard drives these days tending to have a bus all to themselves, or at least priority and DMA capability on the PCI bus.
What I do think it's meant to do is be a workaround for the i386 architecture's 4Gb memory limit without going back to the messy 8086-derived days of page frames and mapping, but before a wholesale switchover to 64bit CPUs... even if you've topped out your RAM at 4Gb when it becomes uber cheap, and therefore can't use a pagefile any more (it counting as part of the total), your system performance can still be boosted by using ReadyBoost on a flash drive, as it's not an actual virtual memory page file, but instead a cache file. Removing commonly used small HD files from the RAM cache (or the entire cache..) from memory to the flashdrive will also increase system memory headroom. Ever cheaper RAM and 64bit architechture will probably obsolete this idea before it has a chance to get properly off the ground :-/
-tahrey
On my laptop I see a small but noticeable improvement when loading applications. I think the stumbling point that many people have about this technology is the way the system uses the flash drive. Even "slow" flash devices have incredible seek times which is what Readyboost is taking advantage of. Using a program that tracks reads/writes on a drive will show you that there are very few writes on the drive once the system has been used for a few hours after enabling the feature
To better understand Readyboost you should first study the prefetching engine in Windows. The two are closely related. Prefetching doesnt cache the entire drive and this is why you can't directly benchmark the improvements.
An easy and inaccurate way to think about this would be to imagine that the entire file allocation table was stored in ram, meaning the data is not cached but the system knows ahead of time where to find it without reading the disk first Ciper 05:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why on earth would you bother being limited to 4gb anyway? If you've moved to Vista you've already given up on the vast majority of drivers not designed for Vista. And if you're stuck with Vista drivers most of them come in x64 versions. Bear in mind your grandmother wouldn't have much luck if she were trying to install an upgrade for DDR or even worse SD RAM where the stuff is expensive as hell and e.g. with DDR your gonna need 4 sticks for 4gb. And if you're going to argue a comp with DDR should be dumped, a dual core A64 with a decent graphics card is good enough for the average user or even the light gamer even if it's roughly equivalent to what's now a budget computer. I do agree thought it's something rather difficult to benchmark. (Also I suspect a lot of benchmarks here are flawed. Most are designed to test an ideal case and rule out other factors so should have few background programs, unfragmented drives etc. However in the real world, a lot of people are going to have a lot of junk in the background and while Vista is good at keeping drives unfragmented, it's not perfect) Nil Einne (talk) 11:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: random personal reflections

message: Me and my friend observed, that after each reboot, Vista seems to be rebuilding the entire cache from scratch - taking a few minutes to complete and causing significant CPU load in the mean-time. Contrary to that, resuming from hibernation doesn't cause this effect. My friend made a claim, that for 'added security', the keys used for encryption/decryption are not stored anywhere on disk, but instead, a new keypair is generated at system startup. This would invalidate the cache, and the system would need to rebuild it. If you'd do this every day, the flash memory should get trashed pretty quickly...
So, is this claim true or false? I couldn't find an answer in the article. Theultramage (talk) 09:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had your same impression about the CPU & HD usage for recreating(?) the Readyboost Cache at every boot. I support your suspect. --87.4.48.170 (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Well while it could be true that it regenerates a new keypair and invalidates the cache every reboot, that reboot would need to happen millions of times before it affects the flash memory significantly, which, if you reboot 10 times an hour would require roughly 11 years worth of reboots. Easily said, it would hardly make a difference. 85.225.40.109 (talk) 23:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, true, I'm more irritated by the 2+ minutes of disk thrashing at startup while the cache rebuilds itself Theultramage (talk) 10:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cache and system restart

message: "The recommended amount of memory to use for Windows ReadyBoost acceleration is one to three times the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed in your computer" -- Isn't this a paradox?  How can you use one to three times the amount of RAM installed in your computer for ReadyBoost? -FoxMajik(talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 16:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, you should follow the norms and begin a new discussion at the bottom of the page. I've moved it down. I've also clarified the article to specify "flash memory". - xpclient talk 02:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Usertalk:Foxmajik

message: I find that the second sentence beneath the Performance tab, printed after this sentence, reads more like an anecdote.  "In one test case, ReadyBoost sped up an operation from 11.7 seconds to 2 seconds (increasing physical memory from 512 MB to 1 GB reduced it to 0.8 seconds)."  Since this is an encyclopedia, anecdotes about range and extremities of performance seem out of place.  I suggest a more general approach be taken with regards to the article, without any magazine-style editing.  I also suggest a revision of the entire page for the very same reason.  I believe the current presentation of the article is just a bit too casual; and I feel like I'm reading a page out of a magazine instead of finding the information I'm looking for.  This is not a stab at anyone.  I'm here not to point out everything that's right with the page, but only where it can be made better.  Feedback please.
DeftHand (talk) 12:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  General Issues Regarding Format of this Page 

message: "According to Jim Allchin, for future releases of Windows, ReadyBoost will be able to use spare RAM on other networked Windows Vista PCs.[4]"
The page that this source directs you to  no longer exists.Larphenflorp (talk) 21:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source Missing 

message: Most flash devices and things that support ready boost are formatted FAT32, hence the maximum cache size of 4gb. However, devices formatted NTFS and exFAT can make use of larger readyboost cache sizes -- I'm using an 8GB device right now, and the readyboost cache is using all of it.
71.191.36.220 (talk) 01:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Innacurate information regarding cache size. 

message: As many of you are now aware, it's possible to enable ReadyBoost for any USB flash device or memory card by making a small change in the registry.  Specifically, what I would like to know is the meaning of the DeviceStatus codes.  Changing the code to 2 will allow you to enable ReadyBoost in the device's properties.  I have read several places where code 4 indicates the device failed the requirements test (in fact, many people say explicitly to change this value from 4 to 2).  However, one of mine resulted in code 7, and I haven't been able to locate any information about codes other than 2 or 4.  Is anyone aware of a list of these DeviceStatus codes?  -- Karl 16:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  DeviceStatus codes 

message: The article states a couple of times, and it has been stated above on this talk page, that ReadyBoost works by caching random reads from the hard disk.  This is surely untrue unless the system could look ahead in time to find out what random reads were going to occur.  What exactly is being read onto the flash drive, and how does Windows decide what to cache?  Without this information the article basically just points to a big black box.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is using the term random to mean non-sequential. Windows isn't just picking stuff at random from the whole disk. It's probably a LRU cache, but I don't know of any source we can use that verifies this for use in the article. - MrOllie (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs to explain why this works 

message: I'm pretty sure ReadyBoost would compress first, then encrypt as encrypted data doesn't compress well. Should be changed to "compresses, and encrypts"
118.209.136.82 (talk) 11:50, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Danikolt (Talk) 18:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ordering of "encryption" and "compression" 

message: I have heard that windows 7 treats ReadyBoost differently as stated in: http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2009/09/03/windows-7-readyboost-really-boosts/  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ljriccio9j (talk • contribs) 04:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Windows 7 Performance differences 

message: The Overview section contains the phrases "256 GB of flash memory can be assigned (4 GB in the x86 versions of Vista and Windows 7)" and "Windows Vista x86 & x64 is limited to using 4 GB; this restriction has been removed in Windows 7".  These would appear to agree that Vista x86 only supports 4GB, and Windows 7 x64 supports 256GB, but they disagree about Vista x64 and Windows 7 x86.  --Pascal666 19:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: As I understood it the 4GB limit applies to any version of Vista and the 32-bit Version of Windows 7. Only Windows 7 x64 allows larger sizes. However there is another limit that was lifted in Windows 7. Vista was restricted to one ReadyBoost device. On Windows 7 it is possible to use multiple ReadyBoost devices.No,it doesn't depend on the version of windows (x86 or x64).In windows vista just 4 GB,in windows 7 up to 256 GB with up to 8 devices.You can refer to the microsoft website for further reading.http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/readyboost --SCF0 (talk) 20:46, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  4GB limit 

message: The Performance section states "Desktop hard drives can sustain anywhere from 2 to 10 times the transfer speed of USB 2.0 flash drives but are equal to or slower than USB 3.0 and Firewire (IEEE 1394) for sequential data."
I think the statement that they are slower than USB 3.0 is not universally correct. The interface speed itself is barely higher than SATA 2.0 (considering protocol overheads). That being said, USB 3.0 is nowhere near as what I'd call available. Though arguing over interface speeds or availability is pretty moot when considering that contemporary hard disks can't even saturate the bandwidth offered by USB 3.0.  If anything the comparison is only fair when considering the same technology (i.e. a 10k RPM drive via USB and SATA or a SSD via USB and SATA). Of course one could put a setup out of his hat where the desktop HDD pales in comparison to the external drive, though that's not really the point of such a statement.--SCF0 (talk) 19:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questionable statements on USB 3.0 / FireWire performance 

message: While testing different configurations of my ssd, I noticed the tab was enabled for readyboost.  This is on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. The ssd is ocz vertex 30gb, 250mb/s random read, 80mb/s sequential read. So far it is a huge speed bonus. Cached apps load at ssd speeds, windows boots in ~20 secs. This is awesome as superfetch intelligently caches my most used programs, effectively turning my 1 tb system disk into a hybrid drive.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.138.50 (talk) 10:52, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Readyboost on windows 7 works with internal sata ssd 

message: "typically 80-100 times faster" surely applies only in cache hit situations, I would say. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 19:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Performance 

message: ReadyBoost reads very much like an advertisment. See previous chapter Performance for example. Some real-world performance data would be good. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 19:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The article also reads rather like a help text for ReadyBoost than a description of its workings. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 19:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advertisment 

message: When insert a portable harddisk (the big one not the small one), it have the ReadyBoost, I want to know that the "last tested on" date and time is stored in the computer or in the disk?--125.27.55.132 (talk) 14:54, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  I want to know 

message: This is my first post, so apologies if it's not appropriate.  I'm wondering if this article is an appropriate place to discuss ReadyBoost competitors like ebooster ( http://www.ebooster.co.uk/spip.php?article89 ) and others (Windows Doctor??) Blueghoti (talk) 21:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Competitors?

message: An image used in this article, File:ReadyBoost.png, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: All Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status 
;What should I do?
Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page.
* If the image is non-free then you may need to provide a fair use rationale
* If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale, then it cannot be uploaded or used.
* If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Deletion Review
To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:ReadyBoost.png)
This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: File:ReadyBoost.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: This refers to a deletion I made on 1/9/13.  The former second paragraph was definitely wrong for Windows 7.  I know for a fact that Windows 7 does not cache all writes to the hard drive.  I can verify this by watching disk performance.  (E.g., while recording a TV program at 1.5MBps, I can see virtually no activity at all on my Readyboost cache device.)  If Vista really did cache _all_ writes, it is no wonder that it does not work very well compared to Windows 7.  According to an article in Microsoft Technet Magazine ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff356869.aspx ), Readyboost in Windows 7 explicitly uses the Superfetch algorithm to populate the cache.  Experimentation should not be the way to determine that Superfetch must be enabled to get good performance in Vista.  More than a citation for just an experiment is needed there - once somebody figures out what is really true. DrHow (talk) 20:36, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Limitations Changes

message: The refers to a deletion I made on 2/9/13.  The item I deleted:
"* Microsoft recommends that the flash memory for ReadyBoost acceleration be one to three times the size of random access memory (RAM). (Although ReadyBoost can use NTFS, it limits the maximum cache size to 4 GB to accommodate FAT32 limitations.) These limits are raised when using media formatted with NTFS. Windows 7 can use up to 256GB in 8 storage devices. Vista x64 is said to allow 16GB cache."
I do not even believe what Microsoft is said to recommend.  Since what is cached are accesses to the system drive (e.g., to load programs), the size of the RAM is not actually all that relevant.  (This is not like virtual memory.)  In truth, the larger the cache the better.  If Microsoft ever recommended an upper limit of 3 times RAM size, I think a reference for this claim is needed.  When I enabled ReadyBoost on my SSD (which is not yet my system drive), Windows 7 _defaulted_ to using 32GB of it, which is 8 times my RAM size.  The fact that Windows 7 can go up to a total cache size of 256GB makes it pretty clear that it is always providing for cache sizes larger than 3 times RAM size.
What is factual in this item is redundant because it is already covered more clearly in the Overview.
The link in the item should preferably have been treated as a reference.  However, there is already a reference for the same fact in the Overview.  This reference could be added.  However, the Microsoft page is not really all that technical.  More like marketing buzz.
I have seen clear statements contradicting the claim that Vista can support more than 4GB; so, if that claim is to be retained, a good reference for it is needed.  DrHow (talk) 00:47, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of "Microsoft recommends" bullet item

message: In the screenshot on the article, I see a ‘Privacy statement’ link. Why would ReadyBoost need an additional privacy statement? Isn't it just using the device as a cache?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.82.82 (talk) 06:55, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: ReadyBoost copies data from your installed hard disk to removable storage. If your removable storage is lost or stolen while the PC is running, the security of your hard disk data is potentially compromised. ~Kvng (talk) 16:28, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Privacy statement 

message: ReadyBoost on Windows 10 works fantastic on my old Netbook w/ a processor that only had 512 Cache and 2 GB of RAM.  I see no improvement on my laptop with more a more sophisticated processor and 8 GB of RAM.Easeltine (talk) 14:36, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Windows 10  

message: Every time I've enabled ReadyBoost on different computers, running Windows 7 or later, using either a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 storage device for ReadyBoost, the performance of Windows is noticeably slower! Yes the USB 3.0 device was connected to a USB 3.0 port. Remove ReadyBoost and the performance magically improves. 
Maybe the article could be updated to reflect the use of ReadyBoost on modern computers still using hard disk drives (including SATA drives with Native Command Queuing enabled). Yes I know SSD drives are becoming more common as prices decrease, but many computers today still use larger capacity hard drives.  
Why can ReadyBoost decrease performance? Is ReadyBoost only needed on computers with insufficient RAM memory? MetalFusion81 (talk) 11:49, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Forgot to say, modern computers may include hybrid drives; there is no mention in the article about ReadyBoost being used with a hybrid drive or if ReadyBoost can be enabled with such drives. MetalFusion81 (talk) 12:02, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  ReadyBoost on modern computers 

message: The article should at least mention RAM pagefile/swap mechanisms, and explain how ReadyBoost may be relevant, or totally separate. Some readers come to this article wanting to understand how the Windows pagefile can be moved/reallocated/optimized etc -- and currently are not getting any help from this article.-71.174.175.2 (talk) 13:32, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  pagefile/swap