T42P Readyboost

[RMD]

I'm looking for a good ReadyBoost solution for my T42P.

I'd rather not have a USB key sticking out the side of the laptop all the time. It would be great if there was something that fit into one of the PC card slots on the side.

I know that there are several Flash drive solutions that have recently come out, including some specifically designed for Readyboost. This would seem to fit the bill, but they are all ExpressCard.

I'm fairly sure my t42p doesn't support ExpressCard. (Correct?)

Any other ideas?

[stevo9er]

How much ram do you have in your system right now?

[bill bolton]

I'm fairly sure my t42p doesn't support ExpressCard. (Correct?)

That's correct. In the T4x model range, only the T43 models have an express card slot.

Cheers,

bill B.

[RMD]

How much ram do you have in your system right now?

My machine has 1Gb of RAM.

[wallybear]

I thought I'd give some details about my use of ReadyBoost in case they were helpful to anyone.

I have a T60 upgraded to 2GB of RAM. I had 1GB when I had only XP installed on the main drive. 1GB is fine for XP but hampers Vista more than a bit so I recommend getting 2GB if you can. I did some experimenting with ReadyBoost both before and after I installed the extra GB of RAM. My impressions (not benchmarks) were:

1- Vista with 1GB is acceptable, sort of like XP with 512MB. I tried both a 512MB and a 2GB flash drive (Crucial and Kingston, respectively) with 1GB of RAM. Both made a noticable difference in application loading and response. In both cases, the access light on the flash drive was blinking most of the time.

2- Vista with 2GB is more than acceptable, even faster than XP once it "learns" via SuperFetch what you like to do with the machine. I again tried both the 512 and 2GB flash drives. Both made a difference but it was more subtle with the 512 than the 2GB. Again, the access light was flashing constantly on the 512 but would sometimes go dark for long periods when using the 2GB.

3- I've installed XP Pro under VirtualPC 2007 from Microsoft (free now to anyone). Interestingly, any size of flash drive seems to noticably improve the performance of VirtualPC more than it does Vista. Also, with 2GB of RAM and 2GB of ReadyBoost, I think that XP Pro running under VirtualPC is faster than running natively on my T60. I have hardware virtualization enabled (I have a T2400).

The reason I installed VirtualPC is to run some applications that cannot run under Vista (like FrameMaker) but which do not depend on any fancy hardware (like a video card, etc.) which is not supported by VirtualPC. I'm very happy with the results. In fact, when I boot from my second drive (in the adapter in the Ultrabay) which still has my original XP Pro installed I usually think that I could do without that environment because the VirtualPC setup is so good for me. (By the way, I have a separate license for XP Pro which I used to install under VirtualPC.)

In short, I like Vista with 2GB of RAM and 2GB of ReadyBooast very much because it is faster than XP, better looking, and more stable (if you install only qualified apps and drivers) than XP Pro. I'm not known to be a fan of Microsoft's in the past, but I do think that this first version of Vista is better than many people give it credit for being. (That is, many people who say they will "stick with XP" should pull their heads out of the sand and take a look at Vista. The future is here now.)

There are lots of new features in Vista which I like...one of which is worth the price of admission alone. The quick and easy "Total Drive Backup" that is built in to Vista makes all solutions available in XP Pro looked like Win95-era stuff. I made a backup immediately after installing Vista and then copied it to an DVD for safekeeping. I then let the software update the backup on an external hard drive every time I do something significant (add apps, etc.). It does an incremental backup which takes only a short time (backs up only the changed things). Now understand that this backup is of the ENTIRE Vista system...not just my data (which is a separate process which is also available).

Pretty [censored] neat and long overdue. Way to go, Vista!

OK, OK end of this un-paid-for-commercial-for-Microsoft....(grin.)

[kulivontot]

I want a 1,2, or 4 gig express card solely for readyboost! Unfortunately such items do not exist yet for a reasonable price. Or even better a straight up hybrid hard drive so that write cache is used as well. I guess we'll have to wait...