Why "ReadyBoost" Sucks

Windows Vista ships with ReadyBoost, a kind of flash-drive system cache that's supposed to speed up the operating system. You can read more about it on Microsoft's Vista Features page. A reader named George asks a logical question about the technique:

I'm using an 8GB USB thumb drive for ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost uses only 4 gigs of this space. How about using the free space as a pagefile?

Flash drives have a finite life; most common flash devices provide as few as 10,000 write cycles. That might sound like a high number, but it's nothing when you're talking about constantly accessed pagefiles and ReadyBoost types of caching.

ReadyBoost has other little-known quirks and problems, too, and to me, its drawbacks far outweigh the (at best) tiny speed boost you might get from using it. The full reasons why and the other limitations of using a flash drive for system caching constitute the lead item in my column at WindowsSecrets.Com this week

Other reader-asked questions I address in this week's column include:

• New custom-built PC hangs frequently
• A baffling problem with Acrobat updates
  
• Partition trouble causes incredible slowdowns
  

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