This may end up as useful information, maybe not, you tell me.

I was in the local Best Buy this morning picking up a new digital camera and was given some interesting information. According to the sales associate I was working with some of the new USB flash drives come with "ready boost" technology. This supposedly only works with Vista but I just found a site that claims they can support XP in a similar manner. Sounds interesting to me. I purchased a 2 GB flash drive with ready boost for $15. (today and tomorrow special) Has anybody tried this? Does it work worth a darn?

 

I'd say it may work ok. The thing you have to think about is, if it writes to your thumb drive a lot it decreases the life of you thumb drive considerably. I'd say give it a try and see if it improve performance. For that price you could afford to replace it if need be. Let us know if you see any gain in performance. I can't use it because I don't use Windoze, but sounds interesting.

 

One other thing, if I understand this correctly, you can use a USB card reader and a memory card like out of a camera also.

 

Let me say first that I have not read up on any of the compatability issues for plug-ins for XP vs Vista but I really cant see why it wouldnt be backwards compatable.

Now, perhaps it will work for XP and Vista but it might work at top efficiency with Vista and only enough to get the job done with XP.

Kinda like USB and USB2.0. If your comp uses USB, you can still use a 2.0 device, it just wont run as fast as it would if both components were 2.0.

 

They way I read it, Vista is using a thumb drive as additional system RAM, if you have one plugged in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_boost

 

It looks like a sweet, and cheap way to add ram.

 

A flash drive is far lower speed than RAM. I use flash memory devices in my system for /var/log /var/tmp and some other parts to keep the hard disk heads from buzzing around all the time in seeking. (On a windows machine this would be the temporary files and the pagefile.sys

This can help a lot with performance, but may reduce the usability of logs in case the system crashes.
I think it's only worthwhile if you use really fast flash memory. (Like Apacer 150X SD cards)

AlpineRAM

 

WHAT? Are ya'll speaking english? I'm just kiddin'. That stuff is WAY over my head.

 

LFD2037 - know what you mean, sometimes you DO need a translator, eh?

It's really hard to keep up with technology. I am just now getting into owning a digital camera and figuring out how to use it with relations to my computer. All this flash stuff, now ready flash stuff, I think I need a FOR DUMMY'S BOOK.

So guys, how would we ask you a question that we could even understand the answer? Way over the head is one thing, but crew cut anyone?

CD

 

What brand are the Flash Drives?

Quote,
I'd say it may work ok. The thing you have to think about is, if it writes to your thumb drive a lot it decreases the life of you thumb drive considerably. I'd say give it a try and see if it improve performance. For that price you could afford to replace it if need be. Let us know if you see any gain in performance. I can't use it because I don't use Windoze, but sounds interesting.

It is hard for people to think of a Flash Drive as being a Consumable.