Angus Kidman09 December 2006, 12:00 PM
With prices on USB keys falling below $25 a gigabyte, plugging one in to work with Vista's ReadyBoost cache might well be the cheapest way to boost system performance.
Everyone loves USB keys. The low-capacity, sub-1GB offerings are now so commonplace that they practically get thrown at you any time you go to an IT trade show or conference.
Despite that, there's still something very desirable about a storage medium that can back up your entire email database, have room to spare and fit in any convenient pocket.
Or, for the less principled about copyright, fit an entire TV series for easy transportation to a media player.
They're also now cheaper than ever. For a 4GB drive, prices have dropped well below $100 (even when you factor in shipping, which shouldn't be that high anyway for something that could just about fit in a standard envelope).
At those prices, you won't necessarily get a brand name, but the technology is standardised enough that this is no major concern.
 Grab a cheap USB key: If you can't a cash-up IT company to give you a freebie like this, there are still other affordable options. |
Aside from general backup and file movement, another potential application for a spare and voluminous USB key is to plug it into a Vista machine and enable ReadyBoost, which uses the key as a high-performance cache for frequently accessed files. There's been some debate over exactly how much performance benefit this gives, but at under $25 a gigabyte it's definitely one of the cheaper ways to enhance a Vista machine -- and you can still use the drive to transport files when the need arises.
Currently, you can only use a single flash device with ReadyBoost. Microsoft has suggested that ReadyBoost may work across multiple drives in a future release, which raises the spectre of hubs filled with el cheapo keys by curious geeks.
If you're interested in trying ReadyBoost, though, make sure you get a memory key with fast enough random data access speeds. Microsoft Program Manager Matt Ayers says the memory key needs "2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writes."
He has good commentary on how to select a Readyboost-compatible memory key
here.
For the truly data-hungry, 8GB memory keys are available, though these are less common and there's not much if any price advantage relative to 4GB models.
There's also another possible disadvantage: ReadyBoost itself is limited to 4GB or smaller (down to 256MB) keys, so if that's your intended application, there's no real point in using an 8GB model.
However, it would be a great way of shifting around high-quality movies (which you'll have downloaded legally, of course, won't you?)