How do I use my Flash Drive as RAM?

Upto today MS windows has had only the two different options for the memory needs of the PC, so the computing can only be done at largly cheaper rates and that too without installing the actual physical memory.

1. Your Physical Memory (RAM)
2. A Page File (A virtual memory file, that is stored on your hard disk).

The page file is usually used by the Windows Operating System to fulfill the requirements of any of the various applications you are using when the physical memory is completley used up. The reason for that is, Virtual memory is much slower when compared to the physical memory and thus Physical memory always takes the first priority.

However, with the new edition of windows (Windows Vista), Microsoft introduced a great new technology called Ready Boost. With the help of this new technology you can use any memory stick or flash drive, SD Card, CF Card as a third memory device for the computer.

This is how to active Ready Boost on your PC:

1.  Open up "My Computer".
2.  Right Click on the flash drive icon and select "Properties".
3.  Then Click the ReadyBoost option.
4.  Enable the ReadyBoost by selecting the option and then assign the amount of drive space you want to use as RAM.

The great benefits of usinging a flash drive for your extra RAM are as follows:

1.   It is a lot cheaper compared to the actual RAM.
2.   It is generally a lot faster than the virtual memory which is usually accessed through your hard disk drive.

Points to note:

1. Bare in mind even if you are using a Flash Drive for extra RAM you will still need at least 512 Mb of memory to run Windows Vista decently. (I personally would not recommend less than 1-2gb Minimum)
2. If your Flash Drive does not have an option appearing on the right click option panel then it is likely that the flash drive you are using does not have the minimum data transfer rate required by the Ready Boost technology.

All flash drives sold by us support USB.2 and as such can ALL be used as extra RAM on your windows vista PC.