How to Improve Vista performance using ReadyBoost

Don’t be alarmed, ReadyBoost is not another software that you will need to download and install. The only requirement is that you have a Windows Vista installed in your PC and a USB 2.0 flash disk with a lot of free space (1G minimum). with a lot of free space we mean the bigger the better.

With ReadyBoost technology, Vista is able to use the available free space on the flash disk as a caching mechanism like a disk cache. It uses recognition algorithms to quickly recognize sequential I/O. Since hard disks are still better at sequential I/O, this recognition algorithm speeds up the whole process - it won’t have to access the whole sequence before processing the next step.

Our computers don’t need more bytes of information to be able to perform recognition. With recognition, the overall input and output (I/O) process is faster. ReadyBoost uses this concept to be able to speed up Vista’s I/O.

To turn on ReadyBoost on your flash disk, right click the drive and then click the ReadyBoost tab. Make sure to choose “Use this device” to turn on the feature on that disk. Allocate about the same recommended space for your setup. In this case 1840 MB was allocated. Click OK to apply the changes. The maximum ReadyBoost allocate-able space is 4G.

Some things to remember. Although you will get significant I/O performance gain from this feature, there is a price to pay. That price will be the allocated space from your mobile Flash disk. You will not be able to use this space for files. You will need to choose “Do not use this device” under the shown tab above to bring back that allocated space.