So, I found a spare 512MB SD card in one of my bag’s side pockets this morning and thought of using it to try ReadyBoost in my Windows 7 lappy. So what is ReadyBoost? Wikipedia defines it as:
ReadyBoost is a component of Microsoft Windows, first introduced with Windows Vista in 2006 and also included with Windows 7. It works by using flash memory, USB 2.0 drive, SD card, CompactFlash or any kind of portable flash mass storage system as a drive for disk cache.
ReadyBoost is also used to facilitate SuperFetch, an updated version of Windows XP’s prefetcher which performs analysis of boot-time disk usage patterns and creates a cache which is used in subsequent system boots.
So, I reformatted the PQI SD card and activated ReadyBoost:
Then, I did a simply test to check if ReadyBoost really works or not. With ReadyBoost activated, I fired up Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended and it just took me 40.1 seconds to see it’s GUI.
Now, I ejected the PQI SD card (ReadyBoost), made a reboot, then fired Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended again, and it took me some 77.0 seconds just to see the GUI. That’s around 30 seconds difference, and indeed it’s a big thing. Indeed, ReadyBoost works!
If you’re wondering the specs of my Windows 7 laptop, it’s an eMachines by Acer D725 running Intel Pentium Dual-core T4200 with 2GB of RAM. Now, I am thinking of getting a 2GB SD Card to be dedicated for ReadyBoost on my lappy.
sdcard wont work on readyboost ^^
@jazz yes they do work… *provided that* you are using a built-in card reader (i.e., a slit on the laptop’s body) instead of an external card reader hanging off the USB port.
The reason has something to do with “sustained random access read/write performance”. An integrated card reader is simply a whole lot faster than an external card reader.
That said, if your card reader does not meet Windows 7’s performance requiremet for ReadyBoost, the ReadyBoost tab will be disabled.