Use any USB stick to ReadyBoost your computer

Got a USB stick that Windows Vista doesn't want to use for memory? Read how to use it anyway.
By chris on Thursday, March 22, 2007


Sooner or later, everyone's computer tends to slow down. Call it old age or simply doing too much, but even the most cutting edge PC's seem to lag after a year or so of use.

For those who aren't keen on opening up their PC to put in more memory, Windows Vista has a handy little feature called ReadyBoost that can use USB sticks for additional memory. Unfortunately, Windows Vista doesn't take kindly to the slower sticks on the market and refuses to use them. Proving once again that we control the computer and not the other way around, here's four simple steps to get around this limitation and use any USB stick you have to increase your computers memory.


1. Setup

Properties of a USB stick

First things first. Plug the device in. Ignore AutoPlay if you have the enabled, and go to Computer in the start menu. When it pops up, right-click the USB stick and select properties.
2. Disable the stick

Disabling the stick

Click on the Readyboost tab on the properties menu and check Do not restest this device. Click okay and unplug the stick from your computer.
3. Edit the registry!

Editing the registry

Woah! Don't panic, it's not as frightening as it sounds. Firstly, you need to open regedit, by opening the start menu and typing regedit, then enter. The registry window should load up.

Using the left-hand pane, work your way through the following folders: HKLM (Local Machine) -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows NT -> CurrentVersion -> EMDgmt. You'll have a list of USB devices the computer has encountered, one of which should be your USB stick. Click on it.

Here there's a few details you need to edit. Double click on Device Status and change the value to 2, then ok. Do the same for ReadSpeedKBs and WriteSpeedKBs, changing their values to both 1000. Exit the regedit and breathe a sigh of relief.
4. And back in again

Putting the stick back in again

Now all that's left to do is put the stick back in and once again go to the device properties (Computer > Right-click on drive). If you look under the Readyboost Tab, you'll be able to now select Use this device. Success! Now enjoy your faster PC.

Can I use USB as RAM?

That is the question mostly heard now. But, some people say it can. So, I tried found the exactly answer in the internet or IT forum. I found a nice answer from ask-leo.com, in this below article that I copied from his website.

“As you can probably guess by now, all memory is not created equal. Your system memory typically resides on your computer's motherboard, and uses a very high speed interface to connect to your computer's CPU. In fact, as fast as that interface is, it's still not as fast as we would like it (so true about so many things), and most modern CPUs actually copy or "cache" blocks of memory internally where they can access it even faster.



One of the characteristics of system memory is that when you remove power, *poof*, the memory has lost what ever it contained. Time to reboot.

USB Memory Sticks, on the other hand, are expected to retain whatever you put in them when the power is removed. Heck, they're expected to retain their memory when they're completely removed from the computer. As a result they use a different memory technology typically called "flash ram", which does exactly that. It's called "flash" because the memory contents are loaded, and then a special signal is sent that, in a sense, tells the memory to "remember this, now". It's kind of like taking a picture with a flash on your camera ... the picture "remembers" the state of everything when the flash went off. Flash BIOS is called that for the same reason - it's just flash memory that contains your computer's BIOS.

The downside to flash RAM is that it's slower. Reading flash memory is slower, and writing to flash memory is MUCH slower. It works fine as a virtual disk drive because our expectations for a disk's speed are quite different than what we expect for system memory.

In addition to the issue of the memory's own speed, there's also the USB interface to consider. As fast as it is for other purposes, it, too, is significantly slower than your system's main memory.

So USB RAM sticks, memory sticks, key chain drives, geek sticks, whatever you call them, are great for portable data storage. But increasing your system's memory is an entirely different proposition.”

But, I think it will be nice if I crop from http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/04/14/576548.aspx, which support USB can be RAM Theory.

“One very cool feature of Windows Vista – especially for machines not natively equipped with the kind of horsepower to fully enjoy the rich visuals of Windows Presentation Foundation (Avalon) applications is ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost enables you to plug a USB key into your machine and have Windows Vista use it as memory. I hadn’t actually used this myself, but had heard of it long ago. When a reader emailed me asking if this was an urban legend, I decided to check it out for myself and was very impressed with how easy and seamless the process is.
Installing/Configuring the USB Key as Memory

First I took a standard USB 2.0 key (I’ll list the prerequisites shortly) and plugged it into my machine. I’m running Windows Vista Beta 2, Build 5346, but I’m told that this works with the latest CTP made available to beta and TAP members as well as MSDN Subscribers. Upon plugging the USB key into my computer, I was greeted with the standard "AutoPlay" dialog box asking how I wanted to the operating system to treat the USB key. However, with ReadyBoost I get the additional option (circled below in the screen capture) of using the key to "speed up my system".

Once I click the "Speed up my system" option, the Properties dialog box for the device is displayed where I can specify to start/stop ReadyBoost usage of the device and how much space I want used as a memory cache. (Actually, according to one of the Product Specialists here, this space is used more as a flash-based page file than true RAM, but the impact is that the more space you choose here, the more benefit you’ll get in terms of overall system performance.)

(In order to return to this dialog box, open the Computer window, right-click the drive (F: in this case) and select Properties. From there, click the Memory tab (as shown in the previous screen capture and adjust the settings as needed).

For the inquisitive, opening the drive in an Explorer window reveals that ReadyBoost has created a cache file of the specified size.
Things to Know About ReadyBoost

If you have a USB key configured to use ReadyBoost and then insert a second key, Windows Vista will display the Properties dialog box where you’ll see the message on the Memory tab as shown in the following screen capture.

While ReadyBoost will work with other devices – such as SD Card, CompactFlash, etc. – I’ve only used it with a USB key and here are the baseline requirements the team gave me regarding what ReadyBoost will work with:

* The USB Key must be at least USB 2.0
* The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device.
* The USB Key has to have at least 64mb of free space ”

Enjoy it…