August 7, 2008 4:45 PM PDT
Speed up Windows Vista with a flash drive
Want to speed up Windows Vista? Got a flash drive? Good. You can make your computer faster. Watch this video and then refer to the steps below.
One of the cooler things in Windows Vista is something called ReadyBoost. Normally if a system is slow, you have to open it up and add RAM. ReadyBoost lets you use external storage for that. Nothing new there. Windows 3.1 let you do that, but ReadyBoost makes it really simple.
- Plug in your USB flash drive.
- You will be given a menu. Choose "Speed up my System." You can access the same option by right-clicking on the USB drive in the computer section and choosing "properties," then the ReadyBoost tab.
- Next select "use this device." You can adjust how much of the device will be used for memory, leaving the rest of the space for file storage.
- Press OK.
That's it! You now have a slightly faster computer, no screwdrivers needed.
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The second comment... HDD are only faster for sequential disk writes... otherwise flash is significantly faster... paging on a HDD is comparably much much slower and is still good but for a different situation.
Also, ReadyBoost stores the file ReadyBoost.sfcache on your flash drive which is the reference file, but also stores a dup copy directly on your HDD. If you remove the USB while in use? Nothing. The computer recognizes that it can't access that file any longer, and immediately reads from the dup'ed file.
And, like comment three.. it works great with SuperFetch.