The performance of the device was so good, in fact, that it lead me to think that the Micro may in fact be the perfect partner for Microsoft's ReadyBoost feature in Vista. Think about it: it has everything required of a ReadyBoost device, it's small, convenient and most importantly fast. I decided to test Microsoft's claims about the ReadyBoost functionality: is it really all it's cracked up to be?
Microsoft claim that ReadyBoost can help the performance of any Vista PC. However, I believe that the best candidates for the technology will more than likely be laptops, due to the fact that desktop PCs are relatively easy to upgrade in comparison to laptops.
Microsoft's ReadyBoost is designed to aid Vista PCs where the memory is constrained. It does this by creating a clever swap file on the storage of the flash drive. This is then used in conjunction with the swap file on the physical disk. The reason this works is because the swap file on the flash drive can access small chunks of data a lot faster than your hard disk drive can, but the hard disk usually has a higher throughput on large sections of data. Vista uses the two different swap files to store the two different types of data, and gains the advantages of both.
Using this method you should see a good increase in the responsiveness of the operating system as a whole, and applications that use small sets of data (Web Browsers, Word, Excel etc) will benefit greatly from the increased access speed of the data they store.
Why has this not been done before? Well in ways it has been tried, I myself (and others I know) used to run Windows 3.11 in a Ramdisk back in those days. I used to have a script that copied the install over to a Ramdisk on bootup, it meant an increase in boot time, but a much more responsive Windows experience. There has been talk of trying this sort of system for years but it had two major flaws:
- You can take a flash drive out of the USB port - ReadyBoost gets round this by also storing a copy of the ReadyBoost swap on the HDD (sort of Raid 1 for swap files), the write performance of this file is inconsequential, as long as it's only written; It's only needed if the flash version becomes unavailable.
- Performance of Flash drives is not universal - Vista does a good job of testing the performance of the Flash device before allowing you to use it. The minimum requirements for ReadyBoost on a Flash device is 2.5MB/s throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/s throughput for 512k random writes.
Article comments
1 - Sandesh Sadhale
A few days back I bought the Sandisk Cruzer Titanium 4GB edition, hoping it will give a readyboost to my windows vista. But when I plug in the device, vista carries out a test and shows that the device DOES NOT have the characteristics required for readyboost :-( dont know why! I am bit disappointed at this as I was expecting readyboost to help me speed up my system.
2 - JohnL
It works great on a XP system. There are NO DRIVERS for Vista. If you have Vista don't bother.
3 - Zbigniew Michalak (Mitch)
I got my self 'mini cruzer 2GB' and it works perfect with my desk top PC on windows XP but now I bought lap top with Vista Windows and it doesn't work at all so what's the trick if any one knows? I looked for drivers all over the internet and couldn't find one, does that mean I can't use my cruzer on my lap top? WASTED MONEY IN'T IT?
4 - Scooter
Just called SanDisk support. A patch to the Cruzer Micro 4GB is being released 'before the end of 2007' that will allow the Cruzer to work with Vista. As others have posted, mine worked fine on an XP laptop and doesn't do doodly a Vista laptop. Hopefully cured in a few weeks.
5 - Brian
In Vista, go into the equivalent of
My Computer and look at your flash drive. Right click on that drive and go to Properties. There is a tab entitled ReadyBoost. Go to this tab, and select Use this device for ReadyBoost. Done!
6 - Divez
for me, its not working! I have Sandisk cruzer micro 1.0GB and nothing´s working! help!
7 - Mike C
This works
C:windowsinfINFCACHE.1 is most likely corrupt and should be deleted.
You will need to edit its file permissions to give Full Control to the
User Group before you will be allowed to delete it.
8 - Azkeyz
This buggered me for a while about what exactly is going on , with sandisk micro cruiser 2g U3 on vista , mine was not working on other USB my extended USB ports , but when I move this little jewl to primary USB port headers , vuala everything returned to normal.
hope that helps some people
May the nforce2 be with you , always.
9 - makki
i have uninstall the u3 software but can not restore the u3 software