ReadyBoost for m11x?

I have been reading about people using SDHC cards and usb flash drives for extra flash memory on their rigs using ReadyBoost. Would this serve as a temporary fix until i get my momentus xt? I would prefer to use a class 10 SDHC because i never use that slot anyways.

P.s i have R2 i5 4Gb ram 250GB HD Thanks in advance

 

I believe the usb slot is actually faster than the sdslot. Even class 6-10. The other issue is that the sd cards stick out of the side of the m11x so that defeats the purpose... Probably be better to purchase a fast 8 gb usb drive if you really want to enable readyboost. I have never tried it to be honest. I have 4gb ram and 60 gb SSD. I would google search usb vs microsd for speed comparisons.

Best Wishes, StevenX

note - I dont think readyboost is going to make much difference for games. But give it a try and post the results. Testing is always appreciated.

 

Readyboost will, at best, give you no benefit with 4Gb or RAM, and it will probably end up slowing you down*. Readyboost was developed to help systems with insufficient RAM - with 4GB, you are well above the threshold where most users will notice a benefit from Readyboost.


* - Readyboost encrypts data before writing it to the drive, so you will be consuming valuable CPU cycles to store data that likely won't be used.

 

If > 1Gb RAM don't use Readyboost

 

Ok, well thats sucks. Thanks for the input guys. That is why i love having this forum. QUICK responses from knowledgeable sources. Its like an interactive Wikipedia.

 

The TL;DR version of what I wrote below: ReadyBoost will not add any performnace benefit to 99.99% of users who read this forum. It only helps if you have very little system RAM, have a fast flash memory device, and a very slow mechanical hard drive. Anandtech benchmarks here.


The way Readyboost works is to act as a fast cache. The idea is that it adds benefit if the following conditions are met:

• You are so low on RAM that Windows is forced to use the virtual swap file.
• Your system is configured to use ReadyBoost.
• The ReadyBoost storage is faster than your hard drive.

#1 - You are so low on RAM that Windows is forced to use the virtual swap file.

ReadyBoost only adds benefit when you are starved on RAM. As one poster (BD2003) on Anandtech Forums said, "Memory is king." Most people who buy an Alienware M11x get 4GB of RAM as a minimum. And most people don't ever run anythign that uses more than 4GB of RAM, so most people never exceed 4GB of RAM usage to begin with.

Yes, you could always come up with a "what if" scenario that broke that general rule (e.g. what if I am running Photoshop, 18 tabs of Chrome, 3 games in the background, AND I launched a 4th game?? I'd run out of RAM then!). But the reality is that anybody with an Alienware M11x is smart enough to know to close out as many programs as possible, to leave max resources available to their games.

#2 - Your system is configured to use ReadyBoost.

This is easy - plug in a USB Flash Drive or an SD card, and Windows will ask if you want to use this drive as a ReadyBoost device. You can only use 1 device for ReadyBoost at once, and the maximum size of a ReadyBoost cache can only be 4GB.

#3 - The ReadyBoost storage is faster than your hard drive.

This is iffy. This made a lot more sense when people were using slow 5400rpm drives. But everyone with an Alienware M11x is using a 7200rpm drive with high areal density, which means their hard drives are FAST... 60MBps - 80MBps. Meanwhile, look at your absolute fastest USB drive or SD card - around 30MBps, because that's about what the USB 2.0 interface maxes out at. Hard drives are slow to seek, but fast to transfer once they have found the data they are looking for. Flash memory is fast to seek, but slow to transfer. ReadyBoost will only help in specific usage scenarios where most of the activity is seek. Anythign that is heavy on long, continuous transfer times will favor mechanical hard drives.

 

It almost definitely won't help you at all. I've got a Class 10 4GB SD card in my M17 (which has only 2GB of RAM) and I haven't really seen a noticeable improvement.