Enable any flash drive for ReadyBoost on Vista

ReadyBoost is a technology present within Vista that uses flash drives like USB Memory sticks to boost performance on systems with low amounts of memory (512MB to 1GB). Using ReadyBoost on systems with 1.5GB to 2GB will see marginal improvements but it’s nothing ground breaking. This is NOT the same as buying more memory for the system; it’s more of a stop-gap measure.

Vista has some strict requirements when it comes to allowing you to use a flash drive with ReadyBoost, not all flash drives will pass the speed test. That’s right, Vista requires flash drives to have a sustained 21MB/sec write speed and a read speed of 30MB/sec. Those aren’t ground breaking speeds and the 7200RPM hard drive in my laptop is faster than that.

The faster the USB drive the better. Those are only the minimum requirements so buy as much speed as you can though it can be hard to find the speeds of flash drives without a little searching. It doesn’t matter though, as it is possible to enable any USB flash drive to use ReadyBoost on Vista.

If you want to enter the brave new world of toying with the registry Windows Vista Magazine has written up the procedure for all to see and do. Or… just buy a ReadyBoost enabled flash drive in the first place. I don’t recommend using the same flash drive for ReadyBoost and data storage.

I’m torn as to whether or not I would do this because the process requires editing the registry and you may actually hamper performance of your system by changing the ReadyBoost requirements. Of course, that’s all relative, I only use ReadyBoost on my laptop and it seems SLIGHTLY faster but I probably wouldn’t miss ReadyBoost if I had to give it up. That’s probably due to the 1.5GB of memory, 7200RPM hard drive, Core Duo processor and dedicated graphics card.

I realize not everyone has a fast laptop and even faster desktop to play around with but at the very least with Vista you should invest in 1.5GB to 2GB of memory and decide if you want to use ReadyBoost from there. In some cases buying memory is no more expensive than buying a FAST flash drive. If it comes down to that choice, go for the memory.

I don’t even bother with ReadyBoost on my desktop because it’s so fast that I see NO improvement by using ReadyBoost on it. Then there are some problems you have to learn to deal with if you choose to enter the world of ReadyBoost and may require you to unplug the drive for short periods of time.

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