Non-Volitile Cache & SD Card

[Zey]

I was showing off my 5793 to a friend and he noticed I have Vista and a Card Reader slot that I don't plan to ever really use. He says I should go grab up a Memory Card for say.. a camera and stick it in there but leave it there. When Vista asks what to do with it, say use it all for a ReadyBoost cache.... mmmm speedy goodness.

But before I go buy up a memory card... does an SD class definitely fit in this reader slot? Or can someone recommend a faster format of storage card perhaps?

[robamb2002]

if you opt'ed for the turbo memory, that is what readyboot is. also with the turbo memory it is closer (therefore faster) to the processor. if you have turbo mem than you don't need the sd card. if not I would suggest a ultra III card, they seem to have the fastest responce times.

[301657]

So is it possible to use the card reader and just pop an sd card in and use ready boost that way? I went with the tvtuner and figured since that was where the robson memory was supposed to go I was loosing this feature.

Thanks

[Zey]

Ok so now I've got a 2gb Panasonic Class-6 SD card capable of 20mb/s writing/reading. Vista apparently needs 3.5mb/s read and 2.5mb/s write ability or the other way around?... Not really sure but anyway, this beastly SD card I got at FutureShop for $50.

The 5793's card reader slot isn't really all that deep. Like going swimming in a 3 foot deep pool, just not the same. So the SD card hangs out of it about 3/8" or 1cm for you metric folks. Not really pleased about this as I'm my dreams I imagined an SD card slot like on the camera that you gave it a little push and it clicked in, flush with the bezel of the computer. Nope, it sticks out, gotta take it out whenever Lappy goes in the carrying bag. Then again it makes sense that it sticks out as it does so you can yank it out easily.

I assigned it as a ReadyBoost drive, 1810mb as Vista suggested. I had to disable another NVcache that was present in the 500mb range so this would work. This other cache was full and lappy was bitching at me constantly that it had no room left. You can only have 1 Non-volatile cache at a time I guess, even if you have the Robson Turbo Memory.

So the little SD card now runs as a ReadyBoost drive with 1.81gb of space. I don't know if it's faster... I think it's faster but I'm willing to bet it's all in my head. But, afterall that where it counts the most.

[Cortez]

I have the Intel Robson installed and tried using the Crucial Gizmo Jr 2GB flash drive which is readyboost capable. I disabled the readyboost on the Robson turbo in favor of the readyboost on the Gizmo. I haven't noticed any difference speed wise so I went back to just using the Robson for both readydrive and readyboost. I suppose it depends on how much cache is used up by the readyboost. I have found it to be a good idea to clear this cache from time to time anyway as it helps improve performance. However, your mileage may vary. Hope this helps.

[bargegod]

i connected a 4gb optima attache 2.0 flash drive and played some games and ran some applications. i honestly didnt see crapola on the performance increase...but then again i also hv stock 4gb of 800mhz ram running too, so THAT ram might hv never fully peaked out needing more help. who knows. im sure people with like say 2gb or less could easily take full advantafe of the readyboost easily then. its a cool application though. laterz............

[parabolaforever]

I use a 1GB mini-SD in an SD adapter that I used in my old phone, and I can tell that with readyboost activated my most commonly used programs do pop up just a bit faster, like Firefox, Azureus, PerfectDisk, Alchohol, VLC, etc. All in all its a matter of saving maybe 1-2 sec when loading a bit more intense program like Azureus with a large queue; and shaving about 5 seconds off boot time, but you wont see much faster results with the intel turbo memory cause its just a cheap $25 flash memory card that people whom can't afford to add more Ram can throw in and see a bit faster computing. Overall, if you got 4 gigs of ram like I do, readyboost is pretty much trivial, the only reason I use it is because I had the spare SD laying around and I don't use my card reader (my new phone has micro SD so i got the SanDisk microSD mini USB adapter on my keyring for file sharing, very nice: i highly recommend)

[parabolaforever]

So is it possible to use the card reader and just pop an sd card in and use ready boost that way? I went with the tvtuner and figured since that was where the robson memory was supposed to go I was loosing this feature.

Thanks

Readyboost will work with any media card, SD, CF, MMS, etc. as well as usb thumb drives and external HDs, but they must meet a minimum size and speed rating, at least 3.5 MB/s, and I'm not sure of size but I know my 256MB USB drive was too small.