windows vista readyboost & solidworks

Last week there was some buzz on Twitter about a new Windows Vista feature that is called ReadyBoost.  What is ReadyBoost you are asking?  Compliments of Microsoft.com here is an explanation.

Adding system memory (typically referred to as RAM) is often the best way to improve a PC’s performance, since more memory means more applications are ready to run without accessing the hard drive. However, upgrading memory can be difficult and costly, and some machines have limited memory expansion capabilities, making it impossible to add RAM.

Windows Vista introduces Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system. You can use non-volatile flash memory, such as that on a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional memory "under the hood."

Windows ReadyBoost improves system memory and boosts performance.

The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Windows ReadyBoost relies on the intelligent memory management of Windows SuperFetch and can significantly improve system responsiveness.

It’s easy to use Windows ReadyBoost. When a removable memory device such as a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card is first inserted into a port, Windows Vista checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, you are asked if you want to use this device to speed up system performance. You can choose to allocate part of a USB drive’s memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.

Source:  Explore the features: Windows ReadyBoost

When I first began using Windows Vista I noticed this feature but never really looked into it much.  After some thought I realized that this feature can have some major benefits for people that have SolidWorks on a Vista machine.  Not too long after I read that Devon Sowell had started using ReadyBoost on his revamped Windows Vista 64bit machine when he wrote a quick blog post about this boot times between a XP 32bit and a Vista 64bit system.  This led me to really begin thinking about this option for my personal laptop which is running Vista 32bit.  So last week I started asking some question on Twitter that led to more people jumping in and showing interest.  Not to long after, Devon posted another great article titled “Vista64 ReadyBoost Warp Factor 10” which stated that the start up time for SolidWorks 2009 on his XP Pro platform was around 120 seconds.  Now with his new system (Vista 64bit) and using ReadyBoost his boot time was down to 8 seconds.  Amazing!

By the time that he had posted this article I was already on the road to our local electronics store to buy a 8GB thumb drive (here is the one that I bought on sale for $19.99).  I made sure when I got to the store that it would work with Windows ReadyBoost (even double checked it on my iPhone while standing there) because at the time I was led to believe that not all thumb drives would work with this new feature.  I felt pretty good on my way back and I was really excited to see the gains that I would get with this new option being utilized.  My excitement quickly died as I plugged the thumb drive in and I received the message that it was not compatible to run Windows ReadyBoost.  Frustrating…yes, Defeated…no!  On the web I went and I came across a great article that tells you have to use ANY thumb drive to work with Windows ReadyBoost.  With a few registry hacks you can get it to work and now mine is a lean mean ReadyBoost thumb drive machine.  You can read that article here.

I have not done any official time testing with SolidWorks because I haven’t had the time to sit down with it yet and play but this is one thing that I did test.  I ran my personal laptop (Vista 32bit) with ReadyBoost alongside my work desktop (Vista 64bit) without ReadyBoost and my personal laptop started SolidWorks up around 8 seconds faster.  My personal laptop is considerably smaller than my brand new work desktop but it still started SolidWorks quicker with the help of ReadyBoost.

I hope this article helps out anyone that is running Vista and SolidWorks.  If you haven’t already checked out Windows ReadyBoost you need to find time to look into it and utilize it soon.