Is Ready Boost still an option for Win 7

You didn't need Readyboost for Vista nor do you need it for Windows 7.

It still is, but there's no point to it. It's all a marketing gimmick.

Because your RAM and your hard drive are both much faster than a USB pen drive - loading anything into it as "temporary storage" won't allow for it to be accessed faster. In fact, the opposite will be true.

It was primarily meant for computers running a small amount of memory, anyway.

Thanks Prosser13.. I am amazed at this info.. Thank you guys very much.

You only need it if you have 1.5 GB RAM or less. I use it on my netbook, but on my notebook and desktop with 4GB RAM, it is not worth me running it.

Wow I put Ready Boost on my Windows Vista Utimate 64. I had no Idea that I was slowing it down. Its a fast corsair Flash drive so I am going to use it for better things.

Great Info Guys and much thanks.

In Vista I noticed it slowed my machine down. On Win 7 I can't say for sure that it speeds it up but I do know it doesn't slow down at all. I only use it because of the fact that I have a Compact Flash card that really doesn't have any other use.

I made several tests on my sig rig with Vista.

I benchmarked using PCMark05 and I did obtain a small boost when using ReadyBoost (3.6%), as you can see here:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm05=1866490
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm05=1866407

I have to say that it wasn't really noticeable in the real world.

The test is free, so I would recommend testing and see how do you feel...

Readyboost acts as a middleman between RAM and HDD

Its faster than your HDD for read/write latency, but slower than ram.

Readyboost takes external flash memory to boost your system if it is LOW ON RAM

As others pointed out, if your flash drive is slower than your HDD, it can slow down a system

Very interesting Real Test results.. Thank you for going the extra mile.. Rep up.