Ready Boost!!!

Starting from Vista up untill w7 ReadyBoost has been a improving facility..

So. what is Ready-Boost!!
well, ready boost is a technology that allows a flashdrive[specific-we will go into that] to use for catch to provide another layer between the RAM and the Harddrive.

and How does it work!!
Now its true that harddrives are much faster devices[an avg harddisk with 7200rmp speed can easily provide speeds upto 60-70MB/s] than flashdrives[typically 10-16MB/s] but its not the throughput that is important here...

Flashdrives are non-volatile, similar to RAMs and has a faster random access speed than any harddrive.
readyboost requires an access speed of 1ms or better while harddrives have 14-16ms due to the read/write head's moving time and other mechanisms.

the readyboost enabled flash drives are used to store the virtual memory pages. for small files it is faster to access the flashdrive than harddrives.. But the data is kept on both drives, so you can take the flashdrives out anytime without causing any dataloss..

there are 2 basic differences in the storing mechanism of harddrives and readyboost enabled storage drives..

1:  the data stored in the readyboost device is compressed by 2:1 ratio.. so a 4gb pendrive will actually be storing 8gb virtual memory pages...[readyboost cant support more than 4 gb till now]

2: the data stored is encrypted using 128bit AES on the fly.. this is necessary because you can take the drive any time causing the caches files to be retained on the drive..

the chart concludes that readyboost has very specific requirements to work. the key factor is the random read write speed.. Flashdrives are built for sequential read-write and they are very fast in that way. But there are very few flash drives with sufficient[>=2.5MB/s] random read speed. though they can provide random write speed sufficient enough..

Microsoft made if specific that readyboost needs a random read speed of atleast 2.5MB/s for 4kb.

and a write speed of 1.75MB/s for 512 kb.

but as they evolved with the technology, now ready boost does support even smaller read/write speed devices. But the main concept is the same..

space reservation....

A flashdrive used for ready boost should have a space reserved at 1:1 to 2.5:1 ratio. i.e. if you have 1 gb of ram then ready boost should consume 1 gb to 2.5 gb of space on the flashdrive.

performance boost...

readyboost is intended for slow systems. if you have a 512MB ram then there will be significant performance boost. the higher the system config. the lesser will be the impact significance.

finally....

readyboost is a technology which allows to catch harddrive data to a flashdrive and using if for faster access.

the obvious part is, all that read/write is going to effect the flashdrive performance/lifetime.

Microsoft has made significant improvements in this technology and expects a lifetime of 10 years for a flashdrive dedicated to readyboost.It may sound as drawback but 10 years are a huge time and no one usally expects to be using the same flashdrive for 10 years, which is not a proper justification but a bare fact.

as every other , this is also a technology and it has its goods and bads. and concluding something on technology is a vague practice. If people need it, they are going to use it...

you can share your views on it and let others share theirs'..