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Make your Flash Cards Work Overtime with Windows Vista ReadyBoost
By © David Cardinal
If you're like me, most of the time your expensive flash cards sit in a wallet while I'm working in the office or on my
laptop in the field. Even if they're still in the reader they're empty and quiet. But Microsoft has come up with a great
way we can speed up our computers, including Photoshop, by using those idle cards. It's really simple. Users of Windows
Vista, the new version of Windows, can tell their computer to use a flash card as a disk cache. Small, frequently used
files like program libraries and data files are stored on the card for quick retrieval instead of requiring windows to
go back to the disk to load them.
The really cool part is that the system is photographer-proof. Since only reads are cached, you can tell Windows to use
your card for ReadyBoost and then just yank it out when you're ready to go and need to take it with you. Windows happily
goes back to using the disk until you've returned, unloaded your card, and tell Windows to start using it again. This is
a truly no-brainer way to get a performance boost from your computer without spending a penny.
Setting up ReadyBoost is simple--if your card and reader are fast enough. This is where Lexar comes in. When I first
tried to use ReadyBoost with an older USB reader Vista said it wasn't fast enough. I simply plugged in one of my
Lexar Professional UDMA Dual-Slot USB readers and a
Lexar Platinum II 80x CF cardand the system happily added the 2GB card as a cache--doubling the amount of data
my system with 2GB of RAM could have cached. In one test Photoshop CS2 started nearly twice as fast once I added the
2GB ReadyBoost cache. You can use smaller cards for ReadyBoost, but they need to be fast and Microsoft recommends a
ReadyBoost cache as large or larger than your system RAM if possible, so you're better off using a fairly new, large
card. One other great thing about ReadyBoost of course is that you don't have to open up your system the way you would
to add more RAM and it isn't affected by the system's RAM size limits. However it won't give you as much of a boost as
adding the same amount of RAM. Adding RAM is still the best way to speed up most functions on your computer.
Of course currently Vista is pre-release software, so I don't recommend you rush out and try to upgrade one of your
everyday production machines, but if you're an early adopter you should definitely take advantage of making your Lexar
cards work around the clock by configuring ReadyBoost. And since most new systems shipped starting in 2007 will come
with Vista pre-installed, you'll have one more reason to make sure you have a fast card reader like the Lexar Pro models
and fast cards like the Lexar Platinum II 80x or
300x versions.
David Cardinal is a a professional nature photographer ( www.cardinalphoto.com )
who also publishes the Nikondigital.org site and DigitalPro for Windows
( www.proshooters.com ) image-management software for digital photographers.
David Cardinal Bio
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