A very simple feature added to all Windows Vista products is "ReadyBoost". ReadyBoost is an exterior add-on system memory (RAM) feature that uses your USB drive to store commonly used files so that Vista doesn't have to go looking for these files on your hard drive. The flash drive that is used must meet with some general performance specifications in order to be used with ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost's minimum performance and space requirements are as follows:
· The device must be at least 64 MB
· The device must be USB 2.0
· It has to be able to read at 3.5 MB/s
· It has to be able to write at 2.5 MB/s
Once you install your USB flash drive, Windows Vista will perform a performance check automatically to ensure that it is fast enough to work with the ReadyBoost feature. If it fails this test, you will receive a prompt notifying you of this. If it passes, you will be asked if you would like to use this device with ReadyBoost. You are able to specify how much of the flash drives storage you would like to use with ReadyBoost. The rest of the memory would of course be available for file transfers and such.
Currently, USB flash drive manufactures are not producing any kind of "ReadyBoost" capable notifications on their products, so it is impossible to tell if the one that you've purchased will in fact work with ReadyBoost. Just make sure that you save your receipt so that you can return it.
Also, if you are running a machine that has decent memory installed already. You may not notice much of a benefit of using ReadyBoost. But, as your system gets older and you have installed many more applications on your hard drive, this feature may save you from having to go under the hood and install more internal random access memory (RAM).
No comments:
Post a Comment