Enabling readyboost. Windows ReadyBoost – how to enable and is it worth it? What ReadyBoost tests showed in programs and games

ReadyBoost technology allows you to increase the speed of your computer using the memory of flash devices.

This technology has been used in Windows operating systems since Windows versions Vista. It is already built-in and there is no need to download it. In Windows XP it is absent by default, but exists as a separate, paid program.

Here's how it works. Part of the cache ( temporary memory) begins to be stored on the flash drive. The delay when accessing the flash drive cache is less than the delay when accessing the page file. Thanks to this, performance increases when there is a lack of random access memory.

It is important to understand that this technology does not complement or replace the page file ( pagefile.sys) and RAM, but is simply an intermediary for their faster operation.

In it you can see tests of various flash drives and SD cards. If you have several of them, then run a test ( long) each or find your device on this site.

Flash drive testing

Download the USB Flash Benchmark program, unpack the archive and run it. The program does not require installation. Insert a flash drive or SD card ( at least 100MB of free space) and select it in the program.

Note the averages in the image below. This will be the reading speed of your device for different amounts of transmitted information. The higher the values, the better.

By doing this test with each flash drive, you will be able to understand which one will work faster and will use it. Or know in advance which one to buy.

Testing laptop boot speed

I decided to check how fast my laptop boots when I enable readyboost. To measure the speed, I used the Bootracer program. The device I used was a regular Kingston data traveler 2.0 8 GB flash drive. I measured the speed a total of 3 times and this is what happened.

I would like to point out that I do not take desktop loading into account. Only the system in a way that is not affected by third-party programs.

First measurement without use. Result: 21 seconds.

The second measurement is already in use. Result: 20 seconds.

And the third time. Result: 19 seconds.

Despite the fact that in general Windows boot did not become faster, the very fact that the system began to boot 2 seconds earlier pleased. You will probably have different results.

From this we can conclude that the acceleration is insignificant, but I will still use it. Perhaps in your case the acceleration will be more significant or vice versa. Draw conclusions.

What results did Readyboost technology give you?

In this article, I decided to tell you how you can speed up your work using the most ordinary flash drive, which everyone probably has. Windows systems 7. Well, let's imagine the following situation. You sit down at some old computer, but it doesn’t handle the tasks you set for it. Well, you won’t immediately run to the store and buy RAM to add. If at this moment you have a flash drive in your pocket with a capacity of at least twice the RAM installed on the computer, then you can safely use the method I described in this article.

All this, which I wrote about above, is called, in abstruse words, "Readyboost Technology".

Starting the service

First of all, we check whether the SuperFetch service is enabled. To do this, click the “Start” button and write “Services” in the search bar, click on the result we need:

To do this, click on it twice with the mouse. Next, in the window that opens, in the “Startup type” field, you need to put or "Automatically", or "Manually". Click “Apply” and then click the “Run” button, which will become active.

Setting up a flash drive

Now insert the flash drive into the USB connector. Go to “My Computer” and right-click on the letter of our flash drive. From the drop-down list, select “Properties”.

Go to the Readyboost tab and set the switch to "Provide this device for Readyboost technology". I would like to draw your attention to the fact that after you enable this option, your flash drive will be completely occupied. I also recommend copying all the information from it and using a blank flash drive for Readyboost technology.

Click "Apply".

If we see the following window in front of us, then everything is in order and soon our system will start working faster:

As you can see, my flash drive is almost full, which means that Readyboost is in action.

Disabling technology

To disable this technology you just need to go back to the properties of our removable disk and again set the switch to the “Do not use this device” position

That's it, now you know how to enable Readyboost in Windows 7 and what is it for?

Watch a video on the topic:

ReadyBoost is a technology that is created at the software level and allows you to speed up the hard drive on computers and laptops. If your “storage” is an SSD or you use a HDD on which high performance, then you don't need this technology.

This option (technology) speeds up HDD performance using a flash drive. Before “overclocking” the drive, familiarize yourself with the features of this acceleration method hard drives.

Operating principle and purpose

Set up the configuration inside the flash drive, because the ReadyBoost.sfcache file will appear there, which will save the cache. This file is not encrypted, and its size can be configured.

As practice shows, there is no need to set the size of the “sfcache” file to less than 1 GB, because with this setting the performance gain is not noticeable. For these operations you need to buy a large flash drive.

In addition, together with the cache, which is stored on a flash drive, you can save information. Let’s say if your flash drive has 8 GB of space, and half of the space is reserved for “software,” then you can write any information to the remaining space.

Compatibility

In the corresponding section you select “caching volumes”. Effective work hard drive through the use of “ReadyBoost” technology is available after formatting the flash drive in NTFS, but provided that the cluster size is at least 2048 bytes.
On OS Windows XP and Vista, you speed up your hard drive using the eBoostr tool.

Key Features

• increased hard drive performance;
• the technology works if the flash drive has a capacity of at least 1 GB;
• to use “ReadyBoost”, format the drive with the NTFS file system;
• setting up the software (technology) is not complicated and is suitable for beginners;
• There is a choice of the maximum size of ReadyBoost.sfcache.

To increase a speed Windows operation 7 using a USB flash drive, you must use the built-in technology ReadyBoost. This technology is only available in Windows 7 and Vista. ReadyBoost does not work on any USB flash drive, but this is rather an exception, especially for older devices. can be used on one computer up to 8 flash drives. The positive thing is that to use the technology you do not need to delete all data from the flash drive, you just need to leave as much space as you want to use as RAM.

ReadyBoost allows you to increase system performance by freeing less-used data from RAM to a flash drive. To achieve a significant result, the device on which ReadyBoost is intended to be used must have relatively high speed work.

Using this technology, Windows creates ReadyBoost.sfcache file on a drive that is encrypted with the AES-128 algorithm, so if your flash drive is stolen, they still won’t get access to the data that was there.

Minimum storage requirements

• Reading speed 2.5 Mb/s, 4 kB blocks
• Write speed 1.75 MB/s in 512 KB blocks
• The minimum size, or the amount of free space on a flash drive, is 256 megabytes.
• The minimum ReadyBoost buffer size is 256 MB, and the maximum is up to 4 GB on x86 architecture and 32 GB on x64 architecture

Recommended buffer size relative to real RAM

• for weak computers 1:1
• for productive 2.5:1

Download Ready Boost for Windows

How to enable ReadyBoost via Autorun

1. When connecting a removable drive, in the AutoPlay dialog box, select Speed ​​up the system using Windows ReadyBoost
2. in the Properties window: Removable drive open the ReadyBoost tab
3. the system will determine how much space can be reserved on this device; if there is less free space than the system requires, ReadyBoost will not be able to be used until you free up space

How to enable ReadyBoost manually

1. Click on the “Start” button and select “Computer” from the menu that opens.
2. Then in the “Computer” window that opens, right-click on the FLASH drive that you plan to use for the technology ReadyBoost and in the menu that opens, select “Properties”.
3. Next, in the “Properties: Removable Disk” window, on the “ReadyBoost” tab, select the “Use this device” option (if the parameters of this FLASH drive allow it to be used for these purposes) and set the amount of disk space on the removable drive, which is reserved to speed up operation systems using technology. When finished, click on the “OK” button.
4. After this, the system configures the cache on the selected USB drive. This process lasts 10-15 seconds. After its completion, ReadyBoost technology begins to work.
5. In the “Computer” window you can see that the free space on the selected FLASH drive has decreased by the amount specified in step 3. A cache file named “ReadyBoost.sfcache” also appears on this disk.

Disabling ReadyBoost

1. Attach to computer USB The flash drive that is used for ReadyBoost.
2. Open the Computer folder, right-click the flash drive and select Properties.
3. Open the ReadyBoost tab.
4. Select Don't use this device.
5. Click OK.

On some flash drives, the ReadyBoost feature intermittently displays an error message even though the drive has previously been successfully used to speed up the system. In such cases, just click the button Test the device. Typically, the drive will then be available for ReadyBoost again.

Windows considers the flash drive not suitable for Ready Boost

This may be due to insufficient performance, then try using this recipe:

There are keys in the Windows Vista registry that are responsible for Memory Management for ReadyBoost.

And you can manually, bypassing the automatic test, connect a flash drive for use with ReadyBoost.

Connect the flash drive and find the branch:

In it, each storage device has its own key with parameters that determine the use of this device with ReadyBoost. These are the parameters:

• CacheSizeInMB— indicates how many MB of flash drive to use for cache, for example, if you have a 4 GB flash drive, enter 2048 MB.
• CacheStatus- you need to put 1.
• DeviceStatus- you need to put 2.
• DoRetestDevice— you need to set 0 to disable repeated automatic testing of the flash drive for speed parameters upon subsequent connections.
• PhysicalDeviceSizeMB— the physical size of the flash drive capacity is indicated here. Nothing changes here, since Vista sets this size itself when you first connect the flash drive.
• RecommendedCacheSizeMB— here you need to enter the same Mb value as in the CacheSizeInMB parameter. This value may be greater than the current CacheSizeInMB, but, naturally, not greater than the size of the PhysicalDeviceSizeMB flash drive itself.
• ReadSpeedKBs And WriteSpeedKBs— these values ​​are recorded during automatic testing of the flash drive; here you can set values ​​slightly higher than the minimum recommended by developers for flash drives under ReadyBoost (2.5 MB/sec for 4K random read and 1.75 MB/sec for 512K random write). For example, 3600 for ReadSpeedKBs and 2500 for WriteSpeedKBs.
• Leave other parameters in the new flash drive key unchanged.
• All numeric parameter values ​​must be specified as Decimal.

Close regedit.

Then go to the ReadyBoost tab of the flash drive; after tweaking the register, all control parameters should appear in it.

On the selected size slider, there will be a value of 2048 MB, which you entered in the register (in the future, this size can be changed using this slider within the physical volume of the flash drive).

All that remains is to select “Use this device” and close the properties window by clicking “OK”.

After this, Vista will create a 2048 MB $emd.sfcache file on the flash drive and begin using the previously rejected flash drive as a ReadyBoost device.

Thus, you can connect any working flash drive rejected by the ReadyBoost autotest.

You just need to remember that the slower the flash drive is (especially according to the developers, access speed is important), the less benefit there will be from using it with ReadyBoost technology.

Is it possible to use an external hard drive connected via USB or IEEE 1394?

You need to right-click on the device icon and open a window with its properties.

If there is a ReadyBoost tab there, then you can try using it.

But in practice, such a device will not pass the automatic speed test for use with ReadyBoost technology.

You can, of course, connect such a device in the manner described above, but there will be no practical benefit precisely because of the speed of access to such devices.

After all, the point of this technology is partly to reduce the number of calls to the computer’s hard drive, which is slower than a flash drive, due to the resulting cache. That is, reduce data swapping.

Therefore, replacing a flash drive with a disk, and even an external one, will not give any gain, and in practice it should even slow down the system.

Notes

• When a removable device is used for ReadyBoost, the reserved space (ReadyBoost cache file - ReadyBoost.sfcache) cannot be used to store other files.
• The recommended amount of memory for ReadyBoost acceleration is one to three times the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed on the PC. For example, if the PC's memory capacity is 1GB and a 4GB USB flash drive is connected, allocating 1GB to 1.5GB of the device's capacity will provide best acceleration productivity.
• If you want to disable the use of a removable device for ReadyBoost, in the Properties: Removable Disk window, open the ReadyBoost tab -> select the Don't use this device -> OK switch.
• In fact, ReadyBoost is the same paging file, only faster (that is, RAM is faster than ReadyBoost, ReadyBoost is superior to the paging file).
• You should not expect any noticeable increase in PC performance when using ReadyBoost. Performance increases, but not as significantly as we would like.
• If you have a choice between increasing the amount of RAM and using ReadyBoost, then it is better to increase the amount of RAM.
• Using ReadyBoost allows you to quickly - in camping conditions, on a trip, on a business trip, literally - on your knee - increase the performance of a laptop when increasing the amount of RAM is not possible.
• When you connect a removable device, the operating system checks it for “professional suitability”. If it does not meet the ReadyBoost requirements, the message "This device cannot be used for ReadyBoost" will appear.
• It is very convenient to use ReadyBoost on laptops with SD card slots. You can also use regular flash drives for ReadyBoost, but it is not as convenient as using SD cards.

Conclusions based on ReadyBoost testing?

It must be said that we did not have everything necessary to conduct a full test, so to write this article we used the knowledge we had already accumulated on the Internet. Thus, according to Tom's Hardware Guide, performance improvements vary depending on the system. The greatest benefit from ReadyBoost is seen on low-performance systems with 512MB of memory, while on systems with 1GB or more, the performance gain is negligible.

Moreover, the results we obtained on two systems with a 2GB USB flash drive are similar. On a system with 2GB of memory, ReadyBoost did not provide any noticeable improvement, while on a laptop with 756MB of memory and a slow hard drive, applications began to run a little faster.

Probably the question is how to speed up the work Windows computer 10 has been asked by many. One way is to use the page file in Windows 10; we discussed how to increase it in. Now we’ll talk about ReadyBoost technology and how to actually enable ReadyBoost Windows 10. And we’ll understand all the nuances of the technology itself. And also you may have heard many questions similar to this one: how to increase RAM using a flash drive. ReadyBoost technology will help us do this, since using the page file is using hard drive, the speed of which is inferior to external drives.

The ReadyBoost technology itself has been around since Windows Vista. Thanks to technology in Windows 10, you can achieve not only more quick launch programs, but also faster launch of the operating system Windows 10. If we talk about who should use this function, then we can say that it is recommended to use it on weak computers and for those who have good flash drives. Therefore, if you have 32 GB of RAM installed and SSD drive You simply don't need this technology.

ReadyBoost technology works on the principle of using flash memory as a place for the swap file. Instead of the hard drive, the system will use the space on the external drive for caching.

If you start setting up and preparing the flash drive itself, then you must make sure that you have the function enabled. Since many people disable it because it loads HDD, well, for users who have an SSD installed, it is recommended to disable it. Well, strangely enough, this is the first time I needed this function.

Remember, when the device is used to speed up the system, the reserved space cannot be used to store files. But still, if you are using a large storage device and have not used all of its working area, then you can save on it necessary files, and use it for its intended purpose.

As for how much memory is available for reservation, I only have 4 GB due to file system limitations. If you format the drive in file system NTFS, then you can set the size to more than 4 GB.

As the developers assured us, ReadyBoost technology allows you to speed up the process of loading programs or other data by 10 times. Which sounds amazing, but in practice everything is not so smooth. WITH large files It works slowly, but with small files there is real progress. And also a lot depends on the speed of your external storage, the more your flash drive is capable of outputting, the faster everything will work, which is not surprising.

conclusions

In this article, we looked at how to enable ReadyBoost in Windows 10, and in general we figured out what kind of technology ReadyBoost is, which you may not have even heard of. Now you know how to increase RAM using a flash drive. All instructions that you can find on the Internet for expanding RAM using a flash drive describe ReadyBoost technology.

Although the article was not long, I think it will be useful to many, especially for those with weak hardware. It's really good way speed up your computer.