Readyboost questions...

I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything yet
that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it doesn't
reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see the
activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is there
some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's readyboost
cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by using
Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's indexed search
being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's features gonna work as
advertised????

Dave

Using Windows ReadyBoost is not the same thing
as adding more system memory.
Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance
because it can retrieve data kept on the flash memory more
quickly than it can retrieve data kept on the hard disk,
decreasing the time you need to wait for your PC to respond.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"David" wrote:

I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything yet
that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it doesn't
reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see the
activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is there
some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's readyboost
cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by using
Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's indexed search
being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's features gonna work as
advertised????

Dave

Carey Frisch [MVP] wrote:
> Using Windows ReadyBoost is not the same thing
> as adding more system memory.
> Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance
> because it can retrieve data kept on the flash memory more
> quickly than it can retrieve data kept on the hard disk,
> decreasing the time you need to wait for your PC to respond.
>
>
and darn if i can find even ONE little thing that is faster on my system
since i enabled it. and believe me, I've been looking!!!

Dave

David wrote:
> I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything yet
> that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it doesn't
> reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see the
> activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is there
> some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's readyboost
> cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by using
> Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's indexed search
> being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's features gonna work as
> advertised????
>
> Dave


ReadyBoost caches disk reads onto a flash memory device, providing that
device meets Vista's requirements.

It's not additional memory (RAM). Open Explorer and click your card's
drive letter. If Readyboost is active you'll see a file named
"ReadyBoost.sfcache".

If it isn't there - From Explorer "right-click" on your card's drive
letter, choose properties, then the "readyboost" tab. You'll see a
"test" button. Click that and Vista will tell you if the card will work,
and if it does, select the cache size you'd like.

Fred B. wrote:
> David wrote:
>> I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything
>> yet that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it
>> doesn't reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see
>> the activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is
>> there some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's
>> readyboost cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by
>> using Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's
>> indexed search being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's
>> features gonna work as advertised????
>>
>> Dave
>
>
> ReadyBoost caches disk reads onto a flash memory device, providing
> that device meets Vista's requirements.
>
> It's not additional memory (RAM). Open Explorer and click your card's
> drive letter. If Readyboost is active you'll see a file named
> "ReadyBoost.sfcache".
>
> If it isn't there - From Explorer "right-click" on your card's drive
> letter, choose properties, then the "readyboost" tab. You'll see a
> "test" button. Click that and Vista will tell you if the card will
> work, and if it does, select the cache size you'd like.
yes, the cache file is listed. i set the cache size to Vista's
recommended size which was most of the 1 GB available. now if i could
just see SOMETHING speed up, compared to w/o that cache enabled! sigh.

Dave

David wrote:
> Fred B. wrote:
>> David wrote:
>>> I just installed a 1 GB SD card in my laptop. I don't see anything
>>> yet that runs faster. I went to task manager to check memory and it
>>> doesn't reflect the 970 MB's allocated on the SD card. How can I see
>>> the activity on that card? do i need a 3rd party application? or is
>>> there some app in Vista that will display activity on that card's
>>> readyboost cache? I was hoping to see an improvement in SOMETHING by
>>> using Readyboost. Seems to be ANOTHER myth, along with Vista's
>>> indexed search being worthwhile. Geeze, aren't ANY of Vista's
>>> features gonna work as advertised????
>>>
>>> Dave
>>
>>
>> ReadyBoost caches disk reads onto a flash memory device, providing
>> that device meets Vista's requirements.
>>
>> It's not additional memory (RAM). Open Explorer and click your card's
>> drive letter. If Readyboost is active you'll see a file named
>> "ReadyBoost.sfcache".
>>
>> If it isn't there - From Explorer "right-click" on your card's drive
>> letter, choose properties, then the "readyboost" tab. You'll see a
>> "test" button. Click that and Vista will tell you if the card will
>> work, and if it does, select the cache size you'd like.
> yes, the cache file is listed. i set the cache size to Vista's
> recommended size which was most of the 1 GB available. now if i could
> just see SOMETHING speed up, compared to w/o that cache enabled! sigh.
>
> Dave

If you load Performance Monitor (PERFMON), then look at the "disk"
section you can see what activity is taking place - Reverse sort, so the
most active are at the top of your chart & you should see
"system/readyboost" somewhere near the top.

I have not tried ReadyBoost, but from experience with some inexpensive
laptops, I've found their USB 2.0 speed to be much slower than my desktop
when connected to the same external hard drive. I think the boost will vary
greatly from one system to another. It is hard to say where the bottleneck
is. I don't know of any way to definitively measure the effect of
ReadyBoost.

-Paul Randall

"David" <> wrote in message
news:F_-...
> Carey Frisch [MVP] wrote:
>> Using Windows ReadyBoost is not the same thing as adding more system
>> memory. Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance because it can
>> retrieve data kept on the flash memory more quickly than it can retrieve
>> data kept on the hard disk, decreasing the time you need to wait for your
>> PC to respond.
>>
> and darn if i can find even ONE little thing that is faster on my system
> since i enabled it. and believe me, I've been looking!!!
>
> Dave

>
> If you load Performance Monitor (PERFMON), then look at the "disk"
> section you can see what activity is taking place - Reverse sort, so
> the most active are at the top of your chart & you should see
> "system/readyboost" somewhere near the top.
yup, I just did that and saw it show up for a bit, with a response time
of 259 ms. all the other response times are 0,1, and 2 ms.

Thanks, Fred!

Dave

David wrote:
>
>>
>> If you load Performance Monitor (PERFMON), then look at the "disk"
>> section you can see what activity is taking place - Reverse sort, so
>> the most active are at the top of your chart & you should see
>> "system/readyboost" somewhere near the top.
> yup, I just did that and saw it show up for a bit, with a response time
> of 259 ms. all the other response times are 0,1, and 2 ms.
> Thanks, Fred!
>
> Dave
>


There are lots of articles about ReadyBoost on the Web. Here's one I
found that I thought sounded pretty accurate in that it basically
describes what I've found here.

"David" <> wrote in message
news:F_-...
> Carey Frisch [MVP] wrote:
>> Using Windows ReadyBoost is not the same thing as adding more system
>> memory. Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance because it can
>> retrieve data kept on the flash memory more quickly than it can retrieve
>> data kept on the hard disk, decreasing the time you need to wait for your
>> PC to respond.
>>
> and darn if i can find even ONE little thing that is faster on my system
> since i enabled it. and believe me, I've been looking!!!

Well it won't speed up your system boot because SD cards are removable media
so Vista assumes it may be removed and can't rely on it.

After that any performance change really depends on what your system is..
how much RAM?
If you have >2G you are going to struggle with getting any improvement from
readyboost.