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Home > Windows Vista Help > Frequently Asked Questions

Why won’t my USB flash drive work with ReadyBoost technology to speed up Windows?

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Published on Wednesday, January 24, 2007

You need a minimum of around 256MB of free storage space on your flash drive. It also needs to be able to access the drive at a minimum speed, and your flash drive may not meet this criteria.

Flash drive under spec

The Flash is too slow - USB sticks need to be a certain size and speed in order to boost memory in Windows Vista
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HenryPoland
USB sticks need to be a certain size and speed - Speed is really poorly documented on these devices. My 12x is too slow and my 25x is getting a good work out. Also the Microsoft developer blog suggest 1-2.5x main memory as a boost size and 4GB as the largest supported. I have 1.5GB running Vista Ultimate
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22/02/07 | 04:56
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dpdiebold
Documentation I have read states that the drive needs to be a minimum of 1GB, and fast. This whole fast and slow thing is fuzzy at best. Vendors will have to do a better job of defining this now that Vista is here. I'm running a new 1GB drive with Ultimate.
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22/02/07 | 02:50
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JeffO93
I'm not a fan of this new feature...
USB memory degrades, unlike system RAM. the more times you write to USB memory, the faster it degrades.

USB memory should last for a few years before it goes completely bad. I've had to throw away two sticks so far. I've had two others that have required CHKDSK /R to recover/fix them.

Computer memory is write-intensive. Using a USB memory stick for dynamic writing will gobble it up in record time. It'll work. It's just the least-efficient way to speed up your computer that I can possibly imagine. I think of this feature as nothing more than a marketing feature to hype Vista.

to each their own, though.
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15/05/07 | 05:46
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jukiet
has anyone purchased one of these jump drives that does the trick? if so, what kind, how much, etc!
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13/06/07 | 11:36
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jukiet
has anyone purchased one of these jump drives that does the trick? if so, what kind, how much, etc!
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13/06/07 | 11:36
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Blue-J
I purchased a SanDisk micro cruzer 4GB for a ReadyBoost drive, and it says it is compatible. It flaked up two different Vista Machines. I gave up on ReadyBoost
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22/09/07 | 07:17
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ninacalada
also, not all usb drives are capable of ready boost.
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15/06/08 | 09:50
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sreetiru2004
I have Sandisk Cruzer micro 4GB and Corsair Flash Voyager 8GB. My installed physical memory is 4GB. How much space I need to allocate in the USB drive? Which drive I can use it Sandisk or Corsair?
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23/09/08 | 08:38
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