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Use ReadyBoost To Enhance Your Windows Memory & Speed Up PC

When your PC goes low on memory (RAM), it is bound to slow down. It does try to get that extra memory from the hard disk, but that hardly enhances the overall performance.

ReadyBoost is a feature in Windows which helps it make use of the flash memory of an external USB flash drive when it needs it. It can speed up PC when RAM goes over limit, and also works with multiple devices in Windows 7.

Here’s a step by step process to use this feature.

1. Plug in memory card or flash drive.

2. Now go to My Computer section and right click on Removable Disk. (In this case G: drive is my Kingston flash drive that I’ve got attached).

Note: If you’ve got Autorun enabled then ReadyBoost should be one of the options in that box. You could use it directly from there.

3. Select Properties from the context menu.

readyboost speed up PC

4.  A properties screen will appear. Go to the “Readyboost” tab. Now check the option next to “Use this device”. Also select space to reserve system speed. If you can’t decide the space, then check the Windows recommendation below.

readyboost windows

You can also click on the option “Dedicate this device to Readyboost”. This option will use maximum available space on the external media for Readyboost process.

That was how you could use this nifty ReadyBoost option to speed up your computer when it runs low on RAM.

Note: According to Windows 7, your flash drive should have at least 1 GB free space. For best results you should use flash drive with double the amount of RAM space available in your computer. This means, if you are using 2 GB RAM in your computer then use a flash drive of 4 GB memory space would be good.

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Written By and published on Friday, June 4th, 2010.


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  • Rue

    Where is the link for ready boost?
    I tried googling but cannot find any reliable source.

  • Himanshu

    @Rue Ready boost is an inbuilt feature in Windows 7. You don’t need to download anything. Just follow the instructions given in the article.

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  • silvertop

    It should be mentioned that if you have more than 2 gigs of RAM, readyboost serves no purpose as windows never gets to use that feature during the average user session. I’d imagine if you went crazy and loaded in 10 word applications and 10 xcel documents readyboost would kick in but who does that.

  • first.last

    it’d be pretty cool if you could dedicate readyboost to a specific application. firefox always crashes on me when i have more than 90 tabs of porn open =(

  • http://www.financehere.com.au JohnC

    Is there an app for this to be used with XPSP3 OS?

    • Himanshu

      @JohnC I never heard about any such app. Windows XP automatically assigns extra RAM memory from hard disk space .

      • John C

        Himanshu, what I wondered if there was anyway of instructing XP to go to a memory stick for it’s virtual memory instead of writing to the disk drive. Would be quicker I would have thought with the memory stick being a solid state unit. Anyway wishful thinking I suppose, from a computer novice….:-) Maybe I will have to buy a new computer that can handle Windows 7……:-()

        • Himanshu

          @John C: You don’t need to purchase a new computer. Try Eboostr (http://www.eboostr.com). This application is not free ( $29) but you could try the free trial.

  • TheBigOldDog

    silvertop,

    I use Windows 7-64 with 4gb of RAM and 4gb of Readyboost and I use a drive monitor to watch how frequently the readyboost cache gets hit and it’s more frequent than you’d think even though Win7 reports only 40% of the main memory being used. I have no first hand knowledge of how Win7′s memory management is architected, but I can tell you in it still uses the Readyboost cache when there’s plenty of main memory available. Try it for yourself and see….

  • Cheryle Pauley

    Does anyone know of any apps or how to increase the boot up speed of firefox? It seems like forever until I can get it to open.

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