Use Flash Drive to Speed Up Windows Vista

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Use Flash Drive to Speed Up Windows Vista

6 April 2007 19 Comments

If you want your PC to run faster with Windows Vista , connect your flash drive to the PC with a USB 2.0 socket and when the autoplay interface comes up select “Speed up my system using ReadyBoost” .

Then you will be taken to a “properties page ” for the device where you can reserve a certain amount of space for ReadyBoost . You will need at least 230 MB of space in your Flash Drive and it should be fast enough to support ReadyBoost else you will get a message .

Now lets see what ReadyBoost actually does . No it is not increasing your RAM . Instead ReadyBoost uses the flash drive to store information that is being used by memory manager . It creates a a virtual copy of memory on the flash drive and since the Flash Drive is much faster than your hard disk , your computer will run faster . No whatever is stored in the Flash Drive is also in the Hard Disk so if you remove the Flash Drive , the memory manager will see the change and will begin to use hard disk . Some people might consider it as RAM replacement but it is not the case , RAM is much more faster than this but it does the job well .

I tried it on my system and the performance was worth noting . I actuallt tested it while playing games and experianced a higher Frame Rate , so do give it a try .

to those wanting to do this in XP. : -
put in the flash drive -
note what drive letter it is -
right click on my computer, -
go to properties, -
go to ‘advanced’ -
click ‘modify’ under the heading ‘performance’, -
go to advanced tab -
click on the drive letter of your flash drive -
set space to use. -

# 15 April 2007 at 5:49 am

Madhur Kapoor said:

Thanks for the info Dr .

# 15 April 2007 at 5:53 am

Garry Conn said:

That is awesome… I have already heard small talk here and there about this… but didn’t realize it was actually this simple to do. Thanks!

# 15 April 2007 at 6:27 am

Somu said:

Its really a bummer that it doesn’t work in XP. Looks like you guys have already upgraded to Vista…

# 15 April 2007 at 7:33 pm

Madhur Kapoor said:

@Somu

Dr . Anonymous has written in comments how to run it in XP . Give it a try , if it works , do inform me .

# 15 April 2007 at 8:01 pm

Sriram Sridharan said:

What Dr. Anonymous’s said here is to change the swap/paging file to be located on ur flash drive. There’s an element of risk involved here.. make sure u dont pull out the drive when operational or ur comp’ll crash at worst or u’ll lose data at the very minimum..

# 28 April 2007 at 2:16 pm

Vishal said:

Hey Dude Its Working
Thanks Let See It Works Properly Or Not
Thanksssssss

# 8 June 2007 at 3:24 pm

Russ said:

This works - but not for long. Flash drives have a “certain number of writes” on their usage before they start to fail. It’s a finite number. It’s in the millions, but you get there fast using it as a swap drive.

Dont’ believe me? Read about flash/key drives.

# 19 June 2007 at 7:40 am

Praneet said:

so will this help me in playing high end games on Geforce 6200 using vista???I’m dying to try out Halo 2 but Madhur has recently informed me that it runs only on VIsta…

# 25 June 2007 at 6:46 am

Ionia said:

Thanks for the tip. Ive been using the Ironkey lately (see https://www.ironkey.com/) it’s really neat.

# 23 July 2007 at 9:25 pm

Mark Tran said:

how can you store memory in windows vista Using a flash drive. I need to know what to do. When i put my flash drive in to the monitor, nothing pops up. I am trying to save my work in microcoft 2007

# 4 October 2007 at 1:00 am

Use Flash Drive to speed up Windows XP said:

[...] Vista has a very cool feature called Readyboost which allowed you to use your Flash/Pen drives to boost your system performance. It allowed [...]

# 3 March 2009 at 7:23 pm

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