ReadyBoost FAQ
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| Q. What's the largest amount of flash that I can use for ReadyBoost? |
| Q. What's the smallest ReadyBoost cache that I can use? |
| Q. What size of ReadyBoost cache is recommended for best performance? |
| Q. How much does ReadyBoost increase performance? |
| Q. Isn't this just putting the paging file onto a flash disk? |
| Q. Aren't Hard Disks faster than flash? My HDD has 80MB/sec throughput. |
| Q. What happens when you remove the flash drive? |
| Q. Isn't user data on a removable device a security risk? |
| Q. Won't this wear out the flash drive? |
| Q. Can ReadyBoost support multiple flash devices? |
| Q. Do SD, CF, MMC and other types of flash support ReadyBoost? |
| Q. Will ReadyBoost support non-flash USB drives such as USB hard disk drives? |
| Q. Can you use an mp3 player to speed up your system? |
| Q. How do I buy a USB flash drive that definitely supports ReadyBoost? |
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Q. What's the largest amount of flash that I can use for ReadyBoost?
A: You can use up to 4GB of flash for ReadyBoost (which turns out to be 8GB of cache after compression).
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Q. What's the smallest ReadyBoost cache that I can use?
A: The smallest cache is 240MB, which means you need at least a 256MB flash drive to use ReadyBoost.
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Q. What size of ReadyBoost cache is recommended for best performance?
A: We recommend a 1:1 ratio of flash to system memory at the low end and as high as 2.5:1 flash to system memory. There is very little benefit in having a higher flash to system memory ratio than 2.5:1.
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Q. How much does ReadyBoost increase performance?
A: Well, that depends. On average, a RANDOM 4KB read from flash is about 10x faster than from a hard drive. But how that translates into system performance depends on your applications and how much system memory you have. In general, the more system memory you have, the less you will benefit from ReadyBoost.
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Q. Isn't this just putting the paging file onto a flash disk?
A: Not really - the file is still backed up on the hard drive. This is a cache - if the data is not found in the ReadyBoost cache, it will fall back to the hard drive.
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Q. Aren't Hard Disks faster than flash? My HDD has 80MB/sec throughput.
A: Hard drives are great for large sequential I/O. For those situations, ReadyBoost gets out of the way. ReadyBoost takes advantage of flash's swifter access time to improve the performance of small, random I/Os, like paging to and from disk.
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Q. What happens when you remove the flash drive?
A: When a surprise remove event occurs and the operating system can't find the flash device, it falls back to the hard drive. Again, all pages on the flash device are backed by a page on the hard drive. No exceptions. This isn't a separate page file store, but rather a cache to speed up access to frequently used data.
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Q. Isn't user data on a removable device a security risk?
A: Everything that is written to the flash device is secured by ReadyBoost's 128-bit encryption, which means you don't have to worry about data security.
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Q. Won't this wear out the flash drive?
A: Absolutely not. ReadyBoost is smart about how and when it writes to the flash device. Research shows that the lifespan of flash devices used for ReadyBoost will have a usable life of ten years or more.
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Q. Can ReadyBoost support multiple flash devices?
A:No. ReadyBoost is limited to one flash device per machine.
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Q. Do SD, CF, MMC and other types of flash support ReadyBoost?
A: Unfortunately external card readers are not supported, so in general only USB drives support ReadyBoost. We recommend you use only a Super Talent RBST USB drive that is designed for and tested with ReadyBoost.
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Q. Will ReadyBoost support non-flash USB drives such as USB hard disk drives?
A: ReadyBoost has no way to tell what is on the other end of a USB cable so it performs a series of basic checks to determine size and speed. Since a USB hard drive will not pass ReadyBoost's speed tests it can not be used as a ReadyBoost device.
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Q. Can you use an mp3 player to speed up your system?
A: No. MP3 players use the 'Plays for Sure' interface to expose themselves to Windows, which is not compatible with ReadyBoost.
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Q. How do I buy a USB flash drive that definitely supports ReadyBoost?
A: Simple. Buy a Super Talent RBST USB drive. Our RBST USB drives are designed specifically for ReadyBoost, and are guaranteed to support ReadyBoost.
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