ReadyBoost in a USB stick

[Hagen]

I recently heard about the ReadyBoost option which suppose to make system faster. Is this about transfer there(to usb stick) the virtual memory?

Meanwhile this option is disabled in my device because Sysmain is disabled... Whats this and how can I enable them both?

[seanlennor]

I haven't seen readyboost. Where did you get that?

[Shane]

I never use readyboost. It is only helpful if your system is always running low on memory
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/readyboost

Which if you use my free version of Cleanmem on my other site isnt normally a problem any more :-D

Shane

[Hagen]

I haven't seen readyboost. Where did you get that?

Make right click on your usb stick, then properties, and u ll see it.

I never use readyboost. It is only helpful if your system is always running low on memory

Physical or virtual memory?
I have set only 512MB of virtual mermory in order not to harm my ssd in this system(htpc).
My physical memory is 4GB DDR3 1333MHz.

Do I earn something if I turn on ReadyBooster in my USB stick(which I use to download the uncomplete torrent files)?

One more question, may I transfer virtual memory in the USB stick?

[Shane]

I actually turn off the page file on my system with 12gb of ram. Never had a problem.

The bottle neck in performance is the hard drive, SSD makes this a lot better. But the page file runs off the drive and so when it has to access the memory Windows puts there you now go from GB/s to only MB/s.

Ready boost is just using the usb drive to put the page file.

Low memory can make your computer sluggish because Windows, which needs a place to stash data, turns to the hard drive. Flash memory offers a speedier alternative.

But with a system with 4GB or more of ram, unless you can actually find a way to use up that much memory you are normally safe to turn the page file off. Like I said I do and it helps a lot, of course even when gaming I have never once used more than 4 GB of memory at once.

Even when you have tons of memory Windows STILL uses the page file, I dont know why but it drives me nuts.

Shane

[Hagen]

So. ReadyBoost is just pagefile into usb stick.

What do u think, should I use this function in this system (no games):

Gigabyte GA MA770T-UD3
Sempron X2 190 2.5GHz
Corsair DDR3 XMS3 1333 2x2GB 9-9-9-24
Intel X-25M 160GB SSD sata2
Win 7 Ultimate 64

[Shane]

With 4 GB of ram, and if you never come close to filling it, then I would say give turning off the page file a try. Just to see how performance feels to you.

Shane

[Hagen]

With 4 GB of ram, and if you never come close to filling it, then I would say give turning off the page file a try. Just to see how performance feels to you.

Turn off the page file?? I dont do that in my main system with 8GB because, as u said, "even when you have tons of memory Windows STILL uses the page file".
Is it so bad to give 512MB?

What about ReadyBoost? Do I enable it or leave it alone?

[Shane]

I have my page file turned off. System isn WAY smoother since Windows isn't using the drive for memory. But having the page file off doesnt break anything, Windows simply keeps it all in RAM which is worlds faster than the HD.

What it comes down to is the slow speed of the drive compared to the great speed of memory. Ram can do 12 GB's per second or something like that. Memory speeds differ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM#JEDEC_standard_modules

MT/s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_%28computing%29

at a transfer rate of 1 GT/s, the data rate would be 8 × 109 bytes/s, i.e. 8 GB/s, or approximately 7.45 GiB/s.

So DDR3 memory at 133 mhz can do 1066 MT or 1GT so almost 8GB/s a data. Where DDR3 at 266mhz is 2133 mt or 2 GT so almost 16GB/s. Now thats speed!

So why on earth, if I have the memory would I want Windows doing anything for the memory on the hard drive? So no page file and no more needing the drive for it.

Windows always uses the HD for it because IF their is a blue screen it needs the page file to write the info of the crash to the event viewer. BUT if I ever do start having blue screens I will turn the page file back on so I can then see the logs. But on a nice stable system I have no need for the page file :-D

This is simply what I like, doesnt mean you have to do the same. I am just a performance junkie lol

Shane

[Hagen]

I have my page file turned off. System isn WAY smoother since Windows isn't using the drive for memory. But having the page file off doesnt break anything, Windows simply keeps it all in RAM which is worlds faster than the HD.

I saw that u have your pagefile off. Probably I d had it off too with 12GB of ram.

So why on earth, if I have the memory would I want Windows doing anything for the memory on the hard drive? So no page file and no more needing the drive for it.

In the past, sometimes when I opened many windows system hanged. I guess it was because of zero pagefile, so I set 512MB.

Now, I havent understood yet... should I enable ReadyBoost in usb stick(thats the point of the thread) or not?

[Shane]

Wont hurt to try it and as long as you have 4GB or more you can turn the page file off. I have no system hangs at all, windows simply keeps it all in ram instead.

But go ahead and try ready boost. But if you have another hard drive it is better to put the page file on it since it will be faster than a usb drive.

Shane

[Hagen]

Wont hurt to try it and as long as you have 4GB or more you can turn the page file off. I have no system hangs at all, windows simply keeps it all in ram instead.

But go ahead and try ready boost. But if you have another hard drive it is better to put the page file on it since it will be faster than a usb drive.

Well, there is no other hard drive. There's an external, but not always connected.
The USB stick is always connected, keeps the uncompleted torrent files. So why not put there the pagefile.

Your system never hangs maybe because u have a good cpu and a good vga(forgot to say that my card is Sapphire HD 6450 2GB DDR3).

Now. As I said in first post, ReadyBoost is disabled in my system because of some disabled Sysmain...  Do u know how to enable?

[Shane]

Readyboost is tied into Superfetch, is superfetch enabled?

Shane

[Hagen]

Superfetch was disabled (I heard that in ssd is useless, so Win7 turn it automatically off?)

I enable it and tried to start it but told me that 'windows cannot start superfetch in local system, error No2, cannot find the file...'
(?)

[Shane]

Not sure, but iof your on SSD you really dont have a need for it.

In fact the only reason people dont like to have the page file on the same drive that is SSD is because SSD drives can only write to a sector so many times before it fails. Its in the billions of times I think. But a lot of people dont like that.

So the page file is a file that Windows would always be messing with and writing, thus why they hate it. Funny thing is the SSD drive is far faster than any normal drive or thumb drive, and you would want the page file to have the extra speed, but again people want these expensive drives to last as long as possible.

Shane

[Hagen]

Well, I have an SSD of 160GB and a USB stick always connected.

Why not set in the stick the pagefile(2 or 4GB)? Are you sure this is gratuitous?

[Shane]

I just know the speeds of  the device what the page file runs on is what is important.

On a external hard drive hooked to a usb 2.0 the max speed the drive can go is 25 MB/s through usb 2.0

On usb 3.0 that external hard drive can go full speed. Good to know when doing big backups

Thumb drives are even slower. I would have the page file run on the fastest possible drive, try reading data and writing to a 2gb file on a slow device. While most of the file may be empty and normally on a good system with no memory leaks Windows may only be writing 20 to 50 mb worth of memory to it that is still at the mercy of the speed of the drive.

How ready boost makes anything faster I dont really know lol because with a heavily used page file it would slow to a crawl.

So for my own personal reasons I found it FAR faster and more stable not having a page file enabled. So for you I say try and test and find what you like and do what you want.

You are not going to hurt anything by doing it and you can get an idea of how things feel.

Shane

[Hagen]

Meanwhile I understood why I had superfetch off. The Intel SSD Toolbax just run(auto) and suggested me to have superfetch off in an Intel ssd disk.

I use to have a pagefile 512MB in my both systems.U say that its better to zero it. I ll think about it

[Rick]

curiuos here;

why not add the statement in the config sys statement;
buffers =
Files =

I was reading up on that the other day. you can search the MSFT website how to set files high.