How to enable Readyboost that is disabled in error

Anonymous
2014-01-01T15:02:17+00:00

My laptop came pre-installed with Windows 8.1 on a 500GB 5400RPM HDD. It has 4GB memory.

Over the holidays someone gave me a 64GB m-SATA SSD, which I put into the laptop's m-SATA slot.

On the BIOS, the info shows that the SSD occupies the SATA 0 slot. I had to re-adjust the boot order to boot normally into my system disk, which is on the SATA 1 slot.

I wanted to use the m-SATA SSD as a Readyboost cache. When I carried out the steps to enable Readyboost on the SSD, it wouldn't let me. The error message is:

This device cannot be used for ReadyBoost.

ReadyBoost is not enabled because this computer is fast enough that ReadyBoost is unlikely to provide additional benefit.

There must be some mistake because the SSD is not the system disk. It only occupies SATA slot 0 (which I cannot change). The system disk is a typical HDD.

How do I go about enabling Readyboost on the SSD? Any tweaks or commands? I have tweaked the registry many times before so if need be I could do that.

[Note: Those who want to suggest other things like sell the SSD, leave it alone, or whatever, please just heckle some other thread.]

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2015-05-06T22:06:26+00:00

Insert the flash drive or card, then right-click on it in This PC and select properties.  Open the ReadyBoost tab.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-08-15T08:11:05+00:00

    another thing to consider is this, Memory is memory. regardless if it is called virtual memory, RAM, or Readyboost. having more memory, no matter how new your system is, can never, ever, be a bad thing.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-14T18:20:49+00:00

    This is not true. Readyboost gives a lot of performance improvement regardless the RAM installed. I have a Laptop with 16GB RAM and with Readyboost the difference is noticeable.

    This is because the false assumption that with 4GB RAM the whole superfetch is on RAM. Right? Well if you have enough free RAM. But if you have like me Google Chrome with a lot of extensions plus a Linux virtual a machine and another for Vagrant you won't have enough space to store the superfetch cache.

    Also in the "Performance Monitor" I can see my readyboost cache compressed is using 6GB. So I assume not all the cache is in RAM. Right?

    Another thing I have a laptop with a slow HD (7200RPM but is still slow I don't know why). If I hibernate instead of shutting down, when it resumes the superfetch is not in RAM and it takes a while to be. Meanwhile Readyboost makes the laptop responsive.

    I have found that if you use many devices (SD card + Pen drive) for readyboost you see improvement as well.

    When we have antivirus and is doing some scanning the laptop can still open applications fast due to ReadyBoost.

    So to all people which says ReadyBoost is a marketing feature made for 2GB RAM and older PCs including the Microsoft support one. Think again and test. Just plug an SD or Pen drive, and give ReadyBoost chance to show its potential.

    Regards

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-06-27T01:35:44+00:00

    I had a sdhc card that I was using for readyboost disabled because of a buggy outdated sd card slot driver that the manufacter (Toshiba) refused to update. I ended up getting a newer driver elsewhere, but the SD card remained disabled for readyboost. savhp's trick worked. although I had to enter the cache size in the registry before the readyboost tab changed from it's diabled state. my card is a 32gb sd card so I but in 7474 into the 'CacheSizeInMB' key which was just below what the usable space was. I then went back to the readyboost tab and told windows to dedicate the drive to readyboost. 32Gb is the max size that can be used per drive, but if your using a 16gb or smaller drive another value should be used in the cache size reg key.

    oh, and just my 2 cents for those people who say ready boost isn't needed.

    I have 8Gb of memory. but get poor performance when I run some games. but when I use ready boost, I see an actual improvement in the games ability to run. one example would be BF4. when I am using ready boost (2x 32Gb drives) I don't get hiccups and frame rate issues when spawning.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-06-15T22:51:54+00:00

    I have W530 lenovo work laptop with an i7, 12GB RAM and a spinner HD.  I paid $10 to get a 24GB msata ssd just to use readyboost and it works well for speeding up the HDD access times. I dedicate 10GB of the msata drive to readyboost.  Even though prefetch and superfetch were set to the value 3 in registry, it also did not allow readyboost initially but try this:

     HKLM (Local Machine) -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows NT -> CurrentVersion -> EMDgmt.

    You'll have a list of USB devices the computer has ever encountered, one of which should be your drive. Click on Device status and change it to "2".  Then go into services and make sure Superfetch is started and on Automatic.  This should get readyboost working for you.

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