InnoDisk busts out internal ReadyBoost USB drive

InnoDisk looks to have come up with a solution for those looking for a little ReadyBoost action in Vista but not willing to give up a USB port for the pleasure, announcing a drive that bypasses the popular port and goes straight to the motherboard. Apparently available in 2GB and 4GB versions (with the former running only $15), the drives boast a transfer rate of 3MB/s for 512KB random read/write and 5MB/s for 4KB, according to Everything USB, easily exceeding Microsoft's minimum requirement for ReadyBoost use. Unfortunately, there's no word on availability 'round these parts, although we somehow doubt this'll be the last drive like this we'll see.

[Phil Perman @ Apr 4th 2007 2:37PM]

So instead of using 1 USB port, it uses a USB pin header that would otherwise provide you with 2 USB ports

I see the appeal

[Darren Wilson @ Apr 4th 2007 2:42PM]

What a superb idea!!! No good for notebook users though and certainly beats having USB Flash sticks sticking out the front of the case that could potentially be snapped off (especially if you have young children & I speak from experience!!!)

[m16 @ Apr 4th 2007 2:47PM]

why not just buy ram?....

[MasterCKO @ Apr 4th 2007 2:59PM]

This is for use with the ReadyBoost feature in Windows Vista which specifically uses USB thumb drives, SD, MemoryStick and other solid state media to improve PC start up times. AFAIK, more RAM actually would have no effect with this feature.

[J @ Apr 5th 2007 8:27AM]

im just a newb but isn't one of the main features of readyboost that is stores system files so it can dramatically improve start up time? how does volatile RAM do this?

[kingofwale @ Apr 4th 2007 2:49PM]

I would MUCH rather trust RAM than this.

[Ypoknons @ Apr 4th 2007 2:50PM]

In most situations, I'd rather just get more RAM...

[MasterCKO @ Apr 4th 2007 2:57PM]

yeah, this seems pretty counter-intuitive to me. I would rather lose a single USB port (as I do right now) than a USB header on the mobo. I guess less clutter on the outside of the box is what they're actually selling, though.

[Blackster @ Apr 4th 2007 3:02PM]

it has. the more ram you have, the less performance you'll get with that ready boost ;)
ready boost is good for systems with less than 1gb of ram!

[MasterCKO @ Apr 4th 2007 3:14PM]

ah, I see. I stand corrected.

[TJ @ Apr 4th 2007 3:03PM]

I really don't see using USB as an alternative. I'm sure but isnt hard drives supposed to be faster? If youre going to using USB as a ram why not just use the the hard drive? Isn't IDE or SATA supposed to be faster.

[skyshard @ Apr 4th 2007 3:18PM]

the point is that flash is faster for lots of small random accesses, because it has instant seek time. hd's can't have instant seeks.

[Carl @ Apr 4th 2007 3:24PM]

Readyboost does not work like (or replace) RAM, it acts like a very fast harddrive cache for frequently accessed files. It won't show a huge boost on a system with more ram, but it is still a very cheap way to get a bit more performance out of a system.

[Acceptable Risk @ Apr 4th 2007 3:39PM]

This seems like a great feature in theory, but flash memory still has a limited number of available writes. It seems to me that if you're constantly using this thing to cache data to and from, you're going to burn in out pretty quickly.

Anybody know what it does to prevent that?

[AndrewNeo @ Apr 4th 2007 3:39PM]

I think this is pretty cool and hope they bring them over. I'm not using one of my motherboard's USB headers, so I'm already set.

[Michael @ Apr 4th 2007 3:58PM]

Read up on ReadyBoost. It improves system performance on all systems, doesn't detract from RAM, and basically improves performance by being a copy of the system on a quicker medium, allowing accessing to multiple sources simultaneously, improving speeds.

Also to the question regarding limited write potential for flash. Microsoft took this in to account and said that using up the current write potential of most USB flash drives would take around 27 years, so the likely chance of you using it up will be nill...

[Madd Matt @ Apr 4th 2007 4:26PM]

Maybe i'm just being silly, but why would you buy this over ram?

Somebody above mentioned its for filesystem buffering, doesn't windows already do that with RAM? Other operating systems *cough* have done this for ages.

I suppose all they're doing is putting a pagefile on the thumbdrive....

I haven't had a chance to examine what readyboost really does yet.

[madd_matt @ Apr 4th 2007 4:29PM]

Actually, I think price is the big issue isn't it? This slower flash memory is far cheaper than RAM.

Makes sense really, when you think about it.

[Tom Gabriele @ Apr 4th 2007 4:42PM]

i don't think anyone has said this: volatile vs nonvolatile - ram needs power to keep information, ssd's don't, yet they have comparable speed

[chrismartintx @ Apr 4th 2007 4:51PM]

i used a addon port (the kind that screw to a plate that take up a slot) and just have a usb drive hanging out in the case (microATX w/ no slots to spare.... my case doesn't have any windows or anything so nobody knows the diff. did the same thing w/ my bluetooth dongle. i agree w/ the RAM comments but my kingston "readyboost ready" 2gb was free w/ purchase of vista. new computer w/ new & beefy hardware don't know if it makes much diff... cool idea though.

[tiuk @ Apr 4th 2007 5:00PM]

I was just thinking recently that I'd like something like this inside my laptop.

[Urza @ Apr 4th 2007 5:03PM]

...did I read that right? $15 for a 2GB? What's to stop you from just wiring on a USB port and making it a thumbdrive? that's pretty damn cheap!

[Juaquin @ Apr 4th 2007 6:24PM]

ReadyBoost is nice if you have an underpowered system, but if you have enough RAM (2GB+), it's a waste of time. Go buy some more RAM, it's not that expensive.

[t-bone @ Apr 4th 2007 8:36PM]

Why spend $60/GB on RAM when you can spend 1/10th of that on Flash?

[hinten @ Apr 4th 2007 6:31PM]

For the love of deity!
Before anyone makes any comment about ReadyBoost and ReadyBoot without knowing an iota of what it is please read: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/03/VistaKernel/

[Sean @ Apr 4th 2007 6:32PM]

So what? Instaed of loosing one usb port, you loose potentially 4? I'm using every fricken' one of the headers on my P5B. This is kind of stupid. Now a readyboost key with a pass-through, ie male on one end female on the other, that would be butter.

[Kritenks @ Apr 4th 2007 7:33PM]

If anybody has every read up on readyboost properly, you'd know this. There are in a way 2 types of readyboost. Internal and External(USB/SD/etc). The External kind is removable(while the PC is running), hence it isn't trusted as much as the internal kind. This means vista keeps a copy of the readyboost cache stored on HD at all times. ReadyBoost is a read cache so this isn't much of a big deal but this also means its not as fast as it could be. The internal ReadtBoost doesn't need a copy on the HD, which means its faster. Also because the Internal ReadyBoost is more trusted, Vista can keep do things like put a copy of the hibernation file and some key system files on there at shutdown, which means shorter bootups.

[Daniel Cheung @ Apr 4th 2007 8:25PM]

ReadyBoost augments RAM. It is simply a way for people who want a cheaper alternative to adding more RAM to get more "RAM" in a cheaper way.

[Juaquin @ Apr 5th 2007 4:46AM]

To quote Matt Ayers

"Overall, as many posters have pointed out, the feature is designed to improve small random I/O for people who lack the expansion slots, money, and or technical expertise to add additional RAM. As y’all know, adding RAM is still the best way to relieve memory pressure."

In other words, readyboost is nice and all if you have an extra USB stick lying around, but it's not going to make a big difference. You're better off saving the $15 you would have spent on this thing and buying another 512MB of RAM. RAM is the better investment when you figure the cost to performance gains ratio.

[Irfan @ Apr 4th 2007 10:58PM]

well i guess on the HDD would make it readydrive not readyboost. where did you read that internal has priority over external... and does it explain how vista knows whats what

[Felix @ Apr 5th 2007 7:27AM]

This sort of product is probably better targeted for headless PC environments, namely Mini-ITX motherboards which provide USB headers but very little room in the case for hard drives or other performance-related devices. They've still got some design issues to work out, but I can see it becoming successful in that market.

[Nova @ Apr 5th 2007 9:20AM]

Remember not only do you get the benefits of readyboost, you control how much data is used for readyboost in vista so it can still be used as a flash drive. Nothing beats having a spare backup drive to hold copies of important documents if something goes wrong with you computer, and at only $15 for 2 gigs there isn't much to lose.

[Jarrett Kaufman @ Apr 5th 2007 5:35PM]

People seem a bit clueless here. RAM is completely different from what this does, and it can still benefit people with a lot of RAM. ReadyBoost is used for caching and comes into play in ways that RAM doesn't.

Anyway, I'm surprised nobody came up with this sooner. Yes, yes, it takes up a header pin, but most motherboards these days have a good two or three of those in addition to building four ports onto the back of the motherboard. So what, you use one of those headers for an extra two-port connector on the back, and another one for the front of your case, and you're left with one unused header, right? Well, instead of taking up one of those external ports that would then cause you to be more likely to find a user for that header (despite perhaps being limited by available locations) you just stick this on there. Plus, since it's something you'd want to leave permanently attached, it's something that can go inside the computer instead of sticking out and creating one more object you can break off during moving.

I like it. I might consider getting one.

[ray @ Apr 16th 2007 11:36PM]

I have 2gig ram pc667 dual core and works great on vista.. xp it sucked, but when I added a 1 gig sandisk the machine took off like a rocket, when readyboost stick is not in the performance degrades by 50% in office 2007, I use a massive accounting/manufacturing program from sage, office 2007, autocad 2006, and rhino 3d along with itunes, aero-desktop that I load and use, I'm not doing stats to say mine can flipflopyourteraflop.. but without readyboost I would be quadcore, I really am a knoppix, ubuto user and lover, but need to make a better living than that offers me (face the reality there will never be linux for regular users to compete with windows.. I have to face reality .. vista 64 is gonna dominate the planet and the workstations at my job.. so I have no choice, which is kinda how I like it. I'm going to add a 4 gig readyboost and see if that adds performance and will unlike anyone here post sceenshots of the resource meter.. does anyone feel like that might be a thing to do as we are so tecnoweenie?

Ray

[DataGuy @ Jun 14th 2007 12:51PM]

Here's some more information on ReadyBoost: http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx

[Irfan @ Apr 4th 2007 10:41PM]

i thought internal readydrives would be attached to a HDD like a hybrid drive.

this device is still using a USB header, and vista wouldn't know if its internal or external... i would think it would assume external since its USB.

and $15 for 2gb is a good deal, but microcenter has 2gb flash drives for 15 bucks all the time, so its not a steal really.

for a desktop id still use a USB rear port and save a port by not using this.