Vista and USB RAM sticks

I have read that Vista can use additional RAM, taken from a USB stick, to increase the memory available to Vista.

Can anyone provide make and models of USB sticks that will work in this way in Vista?

I realise that all 32 bit versions of Vista are limited to 4 gigs anyhow, but as I have 2 gigs in my laptop, I could theoretically allocate 2 gigs from an appropriate USB stick to increase Vista "RAM" to 4 gigs very cheaply.

Does the speed of USB RAM rate somewhere between installed RAM, and Hard drive swap file access speed, or is it slower than HD access speeds?

I don't have Vista yet, just doing lots of reading. Bazza

 

Hi:

See this page and use the link to the Compatibility Chart.

http://www.grantgibson.co.uk/misc/readyboost/

I've used these sticks and know them to be compatible.

http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/flash_memory.html

This is one of their flash drives they state to be ReadyBoost compatible.
It works with ReadyBoost.
Flash Voyager GT 8GB (Red) CMFUSB2.0-8GBGT

These 2 models are not advertised as ReadyBoost compatible but on
plugging them in I was prompted to enable ReadyBoost and they work just fine.

Flash Voyager 8GB (Blue) CMFUSB2.0-8GB
Flash Voyager 16GB (Blue) CMFUSB2.0-16GB

When you first plug one of these into Vista, a dialog box pops up and asks you how much (up to 4GB) of RAM you would like to allocate to ReadyBoost.

I had my doubts on how much ReadyBoost would help me:
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual Core S939 Toledo
RAM: 2GB (Corsair XMS-3500LL PRO 2GB kit) PC3500 CL2/1T
HDDs: 2 x 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 SATA 3Gb/s 7200RPM 16MB
Vista RC2

From the light on the sticks, Vista seems to be accessing them quite a bit so I assume it is helping.

See also: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/performance.mspx
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost

Happy trailz,

 

Hi Bazza,
I did have a list somewher with the different speeds, but cannot put finger on it.
There is information on usb speeds, flash drives, and usb hard drives at this site.
http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm
It would appear the bandwidth of flash/usb is much less than a hard drive.
The usb hard drives appear quick.
I seem to rember hard drives at around 450mbs, but I just cannot find my reference.
I have Vista, but still waiting to setup - like you I want to know it's not gonna foul up on me.

 

The thing about that that worries me, is that flash memory has limited writes, its a high number of writes, but using that for ram to me would seem to burn number up quickly. Don't know much about how that would work, but something to look into/consider.

 

As I understand it, when you use ReadyBoost, Vista continues writing whatever it normally would to the HDD.
It also writes certain things to the flash drive that a flash drive can work with better than a HDD and ignores the copies of same on the HDD when accessing.
Should the flash drive fail or be suddenly be removed, Vista just reverts to using just the HDD.

Happy trailz,

 

Thanks guys for the tips and links.
Lots of stuff to consider.
Keep it going.:cool

Thanks again, Bazza.

 

Looks like the simplest way to check if your USB sticks are compatible with Vista Ready Boost RAM feature is simply to plug them into a Vista PC. (duh).

Vista will then indicate if they are OK, or not.:cool

I'm off to my friendly PC store and plug 'em in, one after the other and see what happens.

Bazza