Hands on: Readyboost revisited

Vista’s Readyboost technology exploits Flash memory, such as a USB key, to create an intermediate cache between your Ram and hard disk.

Since small random access transfers can be quicker from Flash media than a hard disk, Readyboost can be used to accelerate certain requests.

In the last Performance column, I tried Readyboost on a PC equipped with 2GB of Ram, but found it made no difference to the speed of most tasks. Some actually ran a fraction slower. Suspecting it has little or no benefit to PCs equipped with 2GB of Ram, I repeated the tests on systems with 1GB and 512MB.

See the link for further details on how Readyboost works.

Readyboost results
Readyboost should be beneficial to application startup times, so we timed how long it took to launch Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended Edition and then open eight 10-megapixel JPEG images. We then closed Photoshop and repeated the tests to measure any further benefits of caching.

The tests were run on a Core Duo T2600 system equipped with either one or two 512MB sticks of Crucial DDR-2 memory. Readyboost facilities were provided by a Crucial 2GB Gizmo Overdrive USB key, which costs £14 from www.crucial.com/uk.

Starting with 512MB of system Ram and no Readyboost, Photoshop started in 15.9 seconds and took 26.1 seconds to open all eight images. Closing Photoshop took about two seconds and restarting it took 7.7 seconds. Opening the images was now about a second faster, as was closing the application.

I then inserted the USB key and allowed Vista to use 1GB of it for Readyboost before restarting the system. Photoshop launched in 10.3 seconds, but still took just over 26 seconds to open the images. Relaunching Photoshop saw a further boost, just 6.7 seconds, although again there was little change when it came to opening the pictures. Closing the program was a fraction quicker, though.

Interestingly, restarting Vista and configuring Readyboost to use the full 2GB capacity of the USB key made no difference to the previous timings when it came to application startup and shutdown or opening the images.

I then fitted the second 512MB stick of DDR-2, doubling the system Ram to 1GB, and repeated the tests. Without Readyboost, Photoshop started in nine seconds and opened the images in 17.5. Restarting Photoshop a second time took just 5.5 seconds and shaved a couple of seconds from opening the files. Clearly the extra system Ram was beneficial.