SD ReadyBoost... faster?

One of the new features of windows 7 is to expand readyboost from usb pendrives to other storage media.

I have select the "Dedicate this device to readyboost" with the left sd socket (4gb sdhc card, sandisk extreme III). It seems that performance is improved, but every time I boot, the system take some time in order to create the readyboost file on the sd card.

Anyone have a similiar experience, or knows how can I do in order to leave the file on the sd card and not re-create it every time?

Regards,
Alejandro.

 

Haven't heard of that. I've been using a Kingston 2gb SD and rebooted several times with no problems.

 

It does take a couple minutes to create the readyboost I've found but it doesn't seem to hurt anything while it's doing so.. I just see my SD go from a regular SD to 100% full within a few seconds of booting. No trouble really.. just leave it in and forget it.

 

After reading up on ReadyBoost, seems like using 4GB class 6 SDHC card is best. Any more than 4GB is not used for readyboost, and to get the best speed, you need class 6. Also, grab the lastest card reader drivers in the the Win7 Drivers posting. Put the card in the left side slot.

The good news is 4GB SDHC class 6 is < $15 at newegg.

 

I've been using a generic 1GB SD card for ReadyBoost for the past couple of days with my One, but I've not noticed any speed improvements.

So I thought I'd give it a test with HD Tune, and the results were pretty dismal. firstly I tested my HD, whose read speed was about 40MB/s and random access times came in between 15 and 40ms, dpending on the position on the radius of the platter.

For the SD card, the read and write speeds were acceptable, 10MB/s and 5MB/s respectively, but random access times were shocking, which is the whole point of ReadyBoost, to negate the effect of low access times on a HD. For small files up to 4KB it did come in below 1ms, the requirement for ReadyBoost. But above this things quickly deteriorated.

64KB was 6.9ms, still quicker than my HD, but 1MB jumped to a whopping 100ms!! over six times slower than my HD!! The access times for random file sizes came in at 50ms.

So if you intend on using ReadyBoost, make sure you get a decent SDHC Class 6 card. Like previously stated these are now dirt cheap, so I'll be going out to get one soon. Probably not until next week now, but I'll give an update when I do get round to it.

 

I have 3GB assigned to ReadyBoost on an 8GB Class 6 card in the left slot. Can't say I noticed any improvement. Are there any specific operations that ReadyBoost has been shown to significantly improve the performance of in Windows 7?

 

Readyboost really shows its potential when you have like 10gigs of music and you want to see all of their album art thumbnails in explorer. Normally, it'll take about 5 minutes for windows to display all of the album arts. If you enable readyboost, it should load everything in less than 10 seconds.

 

I'm using a Sandisk Ultra2 2gb SD card now for readyboost, formatted with exFAT file system. Seems to make a difference.

Question, people here recommend getting a SDHC class 6 card. Does the card reader in the Aspire One support SDHC ? I read online to make sure you see the little SDHC logo, and the A1's card reader does not have it, just says SD, and nuthin else (on the left slot) a few more on the right slot, but no SDHC logo on either. Has anyone actually tried a SDHC card in their Aspire One yet?

 

8GB Class 6 SDHC card works fine in both slots on my AA1s.