doubt on win7 readyboost with microsd

[adriel]

So guys, I recently found a microsd chip of a cellphone I used to listen music, but as don't use it anymore I've decided give it new destiny.

The idea is: Give my laptop a little bit more of performance. My laptop (I consider it jurassic) is a Dell Inspiron 6400, Intel Dual Core 1.73Ghz -- 2x1 GbRAM (ddr2 333mhz) -- GeForce Go 7300 128Mb -- HD 120Gb 5400 rpm. as you can see .... :bag:

Im running a win7 home basic 32bits on it, with all unnecessary services/programs disabled, and also tweaked with Windows 7 Manager, TuneUp.. PerfectDisk.. all that stuff! anyways..

I'm not a game user, I use my lap for office, web, music, programing, math softwares.

My doubt is, this microsd that i've found (1Gb), If I use it as ReadyBoost, the performance of the hole system will increase in case of disabling the windows swap? Which one, working as cache memory, will do it better(faster write/read)? swap or readyboost/microsd? should I disable swap and use the microsd? If so.. what partition method should I run on it? FAT/FAT32/NTFS?

And the size of allocation unit?

16/32/64 bytes? -- FAT

512bytes/1kb/2kb/4kb/8kb? -- FAT32

.. If i had enough money i definitely would buy a new laptop hahaha. :D

[LiLmEgZ]

Your best bet is to just go buy a Nano sized USB key stick (the ones that dont stick out so far, usually look like the ones that come with Laptop Wireless Mice) that has like 4GB on it and use ReadyBoost that way, its going to be much more reliable.... my friends have used ReadyBoost with 4GB keys on old systems like you have and it worked great.

So in all reality the MicroSD is not gonna be good or reliable enough for the feature.

[adriel]

I understand that an USB key stick would be the best solution for it, but i can't afford it, i don't want to lol

Why should an USB flash drive be better than a microSD? both are flash memorys right?

[manu]

Why should an USB flash drive be better than a microSD? both are flash memorys right?

as far as i know the performance of microSD or USB flash drive depends on read and write speed, for example : sony provides high performance microSD for use in digital cameras which can write upto 50mb/sec

[micky]

Usb stick have come wayyyyyyyyyyyy down in price!

[DKT27]

Yup. USB drives are very very cheap now. I think you don't need more than 4 GB.

However, the reason Readyboost is used, is that these drives have 1ms latency, hence, it's very useful as a type of cache. But microSD cards have like 4MB/s speed compared to 30MB/s read and 15MB/s write of USD pen drives. So, using a microSD card will be helpful, but using it will reduce Readyboost's usefulness. :)

[adriel]

Hmm i got it! So the ideia of turning of the swap, and changing it by ReadyBoost isn't wrong at all? Maybe I'll reconsider buying an USB drive - 2 GB is enough i think - and working on it.

But my doubts still remains.. What alocation unit size should I use on these drivers?

In flash memorys the read/write works like in Hard drivers? Where the biggest cluster size is, the fastest is the access you get?

Suppose I get an USB driver 2.0 of 2Gb. The standard factory format unit is FAT32 4Kb, right? If I change it to 32Kb I'll lose data space of course, but will get more performance?

[DKT27]

You mean Pagefile? Don't disable that. It has it's own use.

I think 4kb is fine enough. Use FAT32. NTFS will be useful if you use a 4GB+ drive.

Unlike HDD, in Flash memory, the fastest part is the slowest part. No matter where you place files, it's same speed. :) I'm not sure if cluster size matters. I'm really unsure about that part.

[adriel]

swap I mean Pagefile, yes.

I'm not sure if cluster size of flash drivers matters either. :s

Think I'll have to test it. Any software recomendation for read/write speed test? :showoff:

[DKT27]

I think swap and pagefile differs a little (from what I remember).

I'll keep it at default (if you are going for a drive less than 4GB).

Try CrystalDiskMark. I'm not sure if it will work on pen drives, a more advanced option is HDTune. I think AIDA64 can do disk benchmark too. :)

[adriel]

I think swap and pagefile differs a little (from what I remember).

I'll keep it at default (if you are going for a drive less than 4GB).

Try CrystalDiskMark. I'm not sure if it will work on pen drives, a more advanced option is HDTune. I think AIDA64 can do disk benchmark too. :)

For USB drivers test speed, I found such characteristic on Zentimo. I've tested HDTune but it do not work on pen drivers. :( I'll test the others anyway.

I'm not so sure about the definition, but I guess windows swap file/pagefile/virtual memory are the same thing, a file that allocs temporary (virtual) memory to help windows manage the system - or something like that :P - .

But I read some stuff and, even if your system doesn't reach its full memory RAM capacity, Windows will alloc virtual memory anyway. :wtf:

Since I do not demands lot of my computer, I'll try force it to use all of my RAM plus readyboost memory, and will disable the windows pagefile. (Objective: gain a little performance on my jurassic haha)

If I don't post anything in one or two days, I probably fuc* up the hole system :win:

[DKT27]

:lol:

Yes. System will use pagefile even if RAM isn't fully utilized. System will use pagefile even if RAM is used 50%. Why? Because virtual memory is required to do stuff. It's like a type of connection between HDD, RAM, etc. Reduce it, see the effects, but don't disable it. This is just my option though.

Don't worry. You won't have any problems. People do live with pagefile disabled. Just that if it doesn't suit your system, it will slow down.

Also, if anything gets messed up. Just remove the pen drive, boot in safe mode, and change pagefile size again. :)