Ready boost for netbook... Thoughts ?

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97tbird

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I have an Acer netbook which I use for travel and also to watch movies and photos on the TV via HDMI ...
I've been reading about speeding up netbooks using ready boost function on windows 7 using flash media such as an SD card.

Here's what I know so far:

-No gains if RAM is more than 3 GB or so ( netbook only has 2 GB)
-Use the fastest SD card you can find which has more than 4x capacity of current RAM)
( I have my eye on a 16GB Lexar 400x class 10 SDHC card)
- I prefer sd card to USB pen drive as SD card can sit flush in the netbook card reader and won't stick out
-Card must be formatted to NTFC to allocate the whole card for ready boost

-Oh and is it better to get a 16gb 600x series lexar card or an older 400x 32gb ?
What matters more in this case if I am using it ONLY for Ready Boost and not for storage?

-Any other famous choices in SD cards for this purpose you can recommend ?
Don't want to spend more than $30

Any thoughts or feedback ?
Thanks IA
 
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Look on "How To Geek". I think articles they have had said it basically does not help.

There is no magic in this area. More RAM so Windows can use more and more for cache and/or SSD.

There is a huge difference in the speed of RAM and flash memory.
 
I couldn't notice a difference. Now if you bought 4gb of ram vs 2gb you would notice that. Or if you put that towards an SSD.

But no, readyboost never caught on because the two above options are better.
 
Yeah, I don't think readyboost is going to make things faster. The only place where it would help is if you just need more RAM when processing very large images. I've got a desktop with 3GB RAM, and often times when processing 24-megapixel RAW images, Adobe runs out of memory. Something like readyboost might be able to help with that.

With that said, I doubt that even a 400x SD card will be faster than your internal hard drive. Why can't Windows7 just use some space on your hard drive for readyboost purposes?
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Why can't Windows7 just use some space on your hard drive for readyboost purposes?


page file
smile.gif
?

readyboost was about quick IO times vs 10ms for a hdd. It works ok for some stuff.. but pretty worthless imo.
With the price of a 120gb ssd under 100$ now its a much better option all around.
 
I have an Acer netbook that I had a SD card in and used for booting an OS. IO speeds just aren't enough on the SD card. I had to allow a ridiculously small (I think something like 200mb) page file partiion on the SD card ... but once it started paging, all bets are off for anything happening.

I had Windows 7 on it for a few years. Never had a problem with 2GB of ram and running out of memory. Only problem I really had in regards to performance was certain websites or those with flash videos pegging the CPU at 100% causing the thing to run slow.
 
Thanks for all responses.
Guess I will hold off on it then...

It's not too slow but I was just curious if I can make it a bit snappier...
I have added 1GB extra RAM already to it for a total of 2gb.
2gb is Max it allows.
I have thought about SSD for it, but I am doubtful about my abilities to DIY it...
The whole process of transferring everything freaks me out a bit
Also when I opened the netbook to install RAM last time I ruined the threads on the JSC screw ... Idk if I can open it again
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
There is a huge difference in the speed of RAM and flash memory.


+1, there. The speed of using "RAM" via the USB interface might be anything but "snappy". If you need snappier performance, other posts have hit the nail on the head:

1) More RAM can never hurt, ever.

2) A SSD drive instead of a HDD can't hurt (especially on a netbook where, on top of the performance gains you'd see, it would be safer: Netbooks tend to encourage users to move them around a lot, thinking they're ultra-portable devices; but many users forget there is a delicately-balanced moving spinning disk drive in there that will fail if you toss the thing around too much!)

3) Losing Windows'd be an excellent move as well unless you require Windows for something.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
His RAM is already maxed out.

Noted. I have *really* got to work on my confusion between "reading quickly" and "only reading some of the words"...
Originally Posted By: 97tbird
2gb is Max it allows.
 
I found the weak point of my netbook was the processor, when loading applications and general slowdowns the processor was running @ 100%, using coretemp in the system tray to watch..

I upgraded to 2gb of Ram, and installed a 80GB SSD, and it did improve performance, but the bottleneck was still the processor...

I bought an Intel SSD, and it came with cables & software to do a mirror image onto the SSD before removing your hard drive, so that could help your fear of copying your stuff over
smile.gif
 
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I tried the Ready Boost feature using a flash drive on my Acer and HP Netbook's and couldn't tell any improvement.
Now I got a bigger laptop just recently with the SSD drive as mentioned... so fast it seems already boosted.
I'll still use a flash drive for other things. Waiting on Amazon order for a 3.0 USB Patriot flash drive just for bigger and faster read/write feature.
 
Ugh - sorry guys; my brain's RAM needs an upgrade :):
I had upgraded the Netbook to 4 (!!!) GB total RAM, not 2 GB.
So def. not gonna see much improvement with Ready Boost, like you guys suggested.

Gonna use it as it is, until it bites the dust...
 
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