I have a maxtor one touch III USB device and I am un able to run ready boost
on the device. It says that ready boost does not have the required
performance characteristics for use in speeding up your system. It has 200 GB
and I have only used but a couple GB. And it asks me to retest and I click
that bytton and nothing changes. I need help and I was told this device would
help speed up my PC. I am running windows vista home premium.
It sounds like your possibly using an external hard drive judging by
the size you stated. I believe the one-touch Maxtor hard drives are
primarily designed to do fairly quick and easy backups. Anyways,
Windows Vista, XP, 98, ME and even 95 have all had a feature called a
'Swap' file. Its been used for a long long time in the world of
computers. What a Swap file is, it its a file your operating system
creates on your hard drive which it uses for 'ram' when the computer
runs out of actual physical ram. So theoritically, with a system-
managed swap file on a say 500gb hd, you could have 500gb of 'useable'
memory.
The downside is that hard drive speed is considerably slower than
actual ram. So 2GB of ram will always vastly out perform a 2 GB swap
file. Windows Vista came up an interesting idea based of Flash memory.
Some flash memory such as those found in USB Thumbsticks and those
found in high-end digital cameras can write/read at very fast speeds
with no access times. In some cases, the access times and read/write
speeds are faster than your hard drive. As a result, Windows Vista
came up with the 'ReadyBoost' system which basically puts a swap file
on your USB Thumbstick and/or high speed card rather than your hard
drive because its faster. Faster resulting in better performance.
In your case, ReadyBoost won't really help with a USB Hard Drive as it
won't be any faster than the swap file running internally on your hard
drive. As they are both hard drives and where the swap file is located
probably won't change the performance too much unless its being stored
in a faster medium. In your case, one hard drive swap file likely
won't be much more power than another unless it is a newer type like
sata2 versus ata. Note that most external hard drives are still
ata(the slower variety) so likely the internal hard drive which is
probably already being used to manage your swap file is quickest.
Some Flash Memory or USB Thumbsticks will be slower than hard drives
in which case the ReadyBoost feature won't be available as moving your
swap file to that device would actually hinder performance. In this
case, you'll notice the option is not available indicating the later.
Its a slower medium then where your swap file is currently being
stored. Window Vista's ReadyBoost doesn't really bring anything new
to the operating system game. It just tries to take an old concept and
make it faster.
