cheapest Readyboost USB stick?

[Sniper82]

Whats the cheapest 2gb USB flash drive that will work with ready boost and is it worth it with 2gb memory?

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

The 2GB Microcenter drives work. And they're only $16-$17

 

[cockeyed]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
The 2GB Microcenter drives work. And they're only $16-$17

Works for me too and it's cheap!

 

[zig3695]

picked up a 4gb ocz rally drive for $40 off the egg. works great, readyboost is awesome. 2gb ram + 4gb of flash makes a happy vista system

 

[Sniper82]

is there any difference with 2gb and 4gb using readyboost and is it really worth buying??

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: zig3695
picked up a 4gb ocz rally drive for $40 off the egg. works great, readyboost is awesome. 2gb ram + 4gb of flash makes a happy vista system

Those are actually one of the worst drives you can buy for readyboost. They barely pass the compatibility test.

Cheap + Fast = Corsair Turboflash.

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: zig3695
picked up a 4gb ocz rally drive for $40 off the egg. works great, readyboost is awesome. 2gb ram + 4gb of flash makes a happy vista system

Those are actually one of the worst drives you can buy for readyboost. They barely pass the compatibility test.

Cheap + Fast = Corsair Turboflash.

only comes in 1gb though? Does it really matter with readyboost? 1gb vs 4gb?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Sniper82

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: zig3695
picked up a 4gb ocz rally drive for $40 off the egg. works great, readyboost is awesome. 2gb ram + 4gb of flash makes a happy vista system

Those are actually one of the worst drives you can buy for readyboost. They barely pass the compatibility test.

Cheap + Fast = Corsair Turboflash.

only comes in 1gb though? Does it really matter with readyboost? 1gb vs 4gb?

Faster is better than bigger, especially when the 4gb drive barely makes the cut.

 

[Sniper82]

They any 2gb thats almost comparable that you know of? I'd at least like to get 2gb.

 

[BD2003]

Apacer USB 2.0 Handy Steno HT203...almost as fast as the corsair, but much harder to find.

 

[gizbug]

Go drop some money on REAL RAM if you want to see improvement.

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: gizbug
Go drop some money on REAL RAM if you want to see improvement.

Just dropped $220 for 2gb couple months ago not gonna drop another $200+ right now. I figured since flash drives can be had for $20-$40 and IF it actually makes opening apps/stuff snappier why not?

 

[Brian48]

To be honest, I haven't noticed a difference using the RB at all.

 

[Sniper82]

I might just hold off then till at least 2gb of the good stuff is released. Or by then memory price might be alot cheaper.

 

[mlc]

hey BD2003.... silly question, but thought I'd ask to rule it out for sure.. Vista would not support using say 2 of those Corsair 1gb sticks at the same time.. correct ?

With a setup like mine (x2 4400, 2GB Corsair PC3200 C2PT) would I be better off going for the 1GB Corsair stick you mentioned, or are there 2GB sticks out there that you can recommend that are easier to find ?

I havent purchased vista yet, but plan on getting the 64-bit premium OEM shortly...

thanks in advance!

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: mlc
hey BD2003.... silly question, but thought I'd ask to rule it out for sure.. Vista would not support using say 2 of those Corsair 1gb sticks at the same time.. correct ?

With a setup like mine (x2 4400, 2GB Corsair PC3200 C2PT) would I be better off going for the 1GB Corsair stick you mentioned, or are there 2GB sticks out there that you can recommend that are easier to find ?

I havent purchased vista yet, but plan on getting the 64-bit premium OEM shortly...

thanks in advance!

super media store.com (link not wanting to work) search for HT203

has the 2gb apacer but I don't want to give near $50 for readyboost .

 

[mlc]

thanks....

this site has it for $34.17 plus whatever shipping would be.. .Not sure of their reputation

365USA.COM

 

[LintMan]

Originally posted by: Sniper82

They any 2gb thats almost comparable that you know of? I'd at least like to get 2gb.

I bought this one Patriot Extreme Performance 2.0GB 200X and it works great. $27 AR

From the even log, the ReadyBoost test numbers I got for it were:

The device (USB DISK 2.0) is suitable for a ReadyBoost cache. The recommended cache size is 1923072 KB. The random read speed is 8088 KB/sec. The sequential write speed is 10180 KB/sec.

That's well over the minimum and better than any of the ones tested in that article that benchmarked a bunch of them. (Sorry no article link).

 

[TBSN]

Umm, pardon my ignorance, but does "readyboost" essentially mean that you can stick in a USB flash drive and have Vista use it as a little extra RAM, between the Harddrive and the system memory?

if so, then Vista really does have a voracious appetite for RAM...

 

[StopSign]

ReadyBoost doesn't help at all if you already have sufficient RAM. ReadyBoost does not make the flash drive function like RAM, nor was it ever intended to. Adding a flash drive is not a cheap way of "adding memory."

 

[LintMan]

ReadyBoost is pretty much a disk caching tool that can speed up access to small random-access disk reads (hard disks are faster than flash at large block transfers).

What uses a lot of small random-access disk transfers? Swap file page reads. You cold maybe think of ReadyBoost as a swap file cache, so it does tie in with RAM usage, but is not a RAM extender.

As you have more RAM, the swap file is less necessary, but I'd bet than even with 2GB of RAM, Windows is using the swap file, and so you'd get some benefit. (Though not as much as if you had less RAM).