Readyboost - Useless for most

8/12/2007

The readyboost feature in Vista is useless for most people. But it is not totally useless, and for those where it can help it is actually a nice feature. So why is it useless for most?

Readyboost is designed to speed up machines that have smaller amounts of memory, and especially those that also have slow hard drives. Readyboost caches program files and other non volatile data to a USB memory stick. But if you have a fair bit of RAM (Say 1 GB or more) the amount of swapping is less. Swapping uses the hard disk which can slow down loading programs files. This is where readyboost can help. But if you have a reasonably speedy drive as most desktops do, readyboost may only be of use if you have a heavily fragmented drive. If you have a heavily fragmented drive, there is a better solution. Simply defragment!

So where is readyboost useful?

There are no hard set rules. But if you have less than 1 GB, you may see a noticeable difference by using readyboost. The other scenario is if you have a 4200 RPM drive. Most laptops today ship standard with 5400 RPM or better. However many new Toshiba notebooks still ship with slower 4200 RPM drives, as do many ultra portables. Ultra portables, small tablets, and UMPC's often use 4200 RPM drives to provide longer battery life. Many of these ultra small devices also use 1.8" hard drives instead of 2.5", and these typically run at 4200 RPM.

And if you have less than 1 GB RAM, and a 4200 RPM drive, readyboost will almost definitely show you a speed improvement.

Readbyboost on Desktops

On most desktops readyboost will provide no noticeable benefit whatsoever. Potentially if you have less than 1 GB of RAM, it might provide some benefits. But most Vista machines are shipping with 1GB minimum.

Is Readyboost Faulty?

Readyboost was designed for portables which fall into the criteria I listed previously. Unfortunately most people do not understand this and expect it to perform a "Turbo boost" on just about any computer. If anything is faulty, its the perception about what readyboost is designed to do.

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Comments:

PMWarlord 2007-08-14 04:07:02 You're mostly right but your RAM number is off a bit. ReadyBoost will have an impact on systems that are less than 2GB. A 1GB system will still encounter a fair amount of swapping when running significant workloads. 2GB systems are fast becoming the norm, but there are still plenty of 1GB systems out there that will see a sizeable benefit from ReadyBoost. Another factor is the speed of the HDD for random 4KB IOs. The slower your drive the more benefit you'll get even when doing small amounts of swapping - since random IOs on NVRAM can be 10X or more faster than HDD. That could mean several seconds benefit when launching frequently used apps that have paged-out all or part of their working set.
Chad Hower 2007-08-14 08:51:36 Are you basing this on how RB should work, or it does work? I based my post on a lot of experimentation, but before I did that I did a lot of research based on others experiences. Here are a few I quickly "refound" http://www.activewin.com/reviews/hardware/memory/vista/readyboost.shtml http://www.extrememhz.com/vboost-p1.shtml http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/blog/65 "We didn’t see any performance improvement here and other websites (and even manufacturers) that are posting results showing performance increase with Ready Boost are using 256 MB systems for the performance boost to be measurable." Note also that I used the word "significant". On systems with 1G+ you might get 5-50% improvement on some items, but RB has been shown to slow down other things on such systems. Even if it were a net plus, 5-10% on some tasks is not really signiifcant, and to most users totally unnoticeable.
Brian Noyes 2007-08-16 06:42:36 I think another important criteria is usage patterns. Where I notice a perf improvement, even on a speedy 2GB machine, is when I am teaching a class or giving a user group/ conference session where I am constantly firing up and shutting down instances of VS, SSMS, Reflector, etc. It seems like ReadyBoost must be caching those DLLs between runs resulting in faster app startup time.
Chad Hower 2007-08-16 07:46:58 Its possible. I didnt notice any difference in that scenario when I tried it. But it could be highly hardware dependent too. Im sure Readyboost works in some scenarios, but it seems to be a limited benefit, and in very limited configurations unfortunately.
Hozer 2007-09-07 12:11:46 Just for you info the following is a fact!! 1. Most usb memory sticks have a data transfer speed of only 20-30mps. While most hard drives have a data transfer speed of 75mps. IMHO its not all the fast
Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu 2007-09-07 06:50:26 USB memory stick speeds vary greatly, and often some are 2-3x faster than others. Vista automatically tests the device and if its too slow wont use it unless you force it with registry settings. That being said - even if the USB device is the same speed or a bit slower, it can beat the HD on random access and is a secondary device. So if a HD is busy swapping, RB can be very useful by allowing it to be read while the HD is busy otherwise. Also - HD speeds vary and on laptops, esp those wtih 4200 RPM drives, a USB can be faster in many cases.
Josh Hines 2008-12-18 11:20:37 Just found this post and yeah i know its old but others like my self may stumble across it.... either way whether it is or isnt useful ... is a matter of opinion some say it does others say it doesnt i personally notice a second or 2 quicker loading time on most programs.. i recently had a laptop with vista given to me and i said what the hell can it play WoW... yes it did and quite well but at times in really nice visual areas it would get choppy ... plugged a 2gb usb device in and noticed it never got choppy again ... so either way hell 2-4gb memory sticks cost 10-20 bucks so if you have vista just use it its not really like your losing anything

PMWarlord 2007-08-14 04:07:02
You're mostly right but your RAM number is off a bit. ReadyBoost will have an impact on systems that are less than *2GB*. A 1GB system will still encounter a fair amount of swapping when running significant workloads. 2GB systems are fast becoming the norm, but there are still plenty of 1GB systems out there that will see a sizeable benefit from ReadyBoost. Another factor is the speed of the HDD for random 4KB IOs. The slower your drive the more benefit you'll get even when doing small amounts of swapping - since random IOs on NVRAM can be 10X or more faster than HDD. That could mean several seconds benefit when launching frequently used apps that have paged-out all or part of their working set.

Chad Hower 2007-08-14 08:51:36
Are you basing this on how RB should work, or it does work? I based my post on a lot of experimentation, but before I did that I did a lot of research based on others experiences.

Here are a few I quickly "refound"

http://www.activewin.com/reviews/hardware/memory/vista/readyboost.shtml

http://www.extrememhz.com/vboost-p1.shtml

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/blog/65

"We didn’t see any performance improvement here and other websites (and even manufacturers) that are posting results showing performance increase with Ready Boost are using 256 MB systems for the performance boost to be measurable."

Note also that I used the word "significant". On systems with 1G+ you might get 5-50% improvement on some items, but RB has been shown to slow down other things on such systems. Even if it were a net plus, 5-10% on *some* tasks is not really signiifcant, and to most users totally unnoticeable.

Brian Noyes 2007-08-16 06:42:36
I think another important criteria is usage patterns. Where I notice a perf improvement, even on a speedy 2GB machine, is when I am teaching a class or giving a user group/ conference session where I am constantly firing up and shutting down instances of VS, SSMS, Reflector, etc. It seems like ReadyBoost must be caching those DLLs between runs resulting in faster app startup time.

Chad Hower 2007-08-16 07:46:58
Its possible. I didnt notice any difference in that scenario when I tried it. But it could be highly hardware dependent too.

Im sure Readyboost works in some scenarios, but it seems to be a limited benefit, and in very limited configurations unfortunately.

Hozer 2007-09-07 12:11:46
Just for you info the following is a fact!!

1. Most usb memory sticks have a data transfer speed of only 20-30mps. While most hard drives have a data transfer speed of 75mps. IMHO its not all the fast

Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu 2007-09-07 06:50:26
USB memory stick speeds vary greatly, and often some are 2-3x faster than others. Vista automatically tests the device and if its too slow wont use it unless you force it with registry settings.

That being said - even if the USB device is the same speed or a bit slower, it can beat the HD on random access and is a secondary device. So if a HD is busy swapping, RB can be very useful by allowing it to be read while the HD is busy otherwise.

Also - HD speeds vary and on laptops, esp those wtih 4200 RPM drives, a USB can be faster in many cases.

Josh Hines 2008-12-18 11:20:37
Just found this post and yeah i know its old but others like my self may stumble across it.... either way whether it is or isnt useful ... is a matter of opinion some say it does others say it doesnt i personally notice a second or 2 quicker loading time on most programs.. i recently had a laptop with vista given to me and i said what the hell can it play WoW... yes it did and quite well but at times in really nice visual areas it would get choppy ... plugged a 2gb usb device in and noticed it never got choppy again ... so either way hell 2-4gb memory sticks cost 10-20 bucks so if you have vista just use it its not really like your losing anything

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