Make use of multiple flash drives or cards for a speed boost

One of the celebrated upgrades in Windows Vista was ReadyBoost, a handy technology that lets you make use of a USB flash drive or flash-memory card (such as an SD card) to serve as extra fast-access cache memory for frequently used files and data. (In essence, it serves the same purpose as cache on your hard drive, but the fact that solid-state memory is being used is a speed plus.) When you plugged in a USB key or flash card, you would be prompted whether you wanted to use it as storage, or as a supplement to speed up your PC.

The introduction of ReadyBoost coincided with the precipitous fall in price of flash media. With 4GB flash drives selling now for well under $20, most users own at least a few of these handy devices in various capacities. Why let yours sit idle when they’re not being used to store or transport files?

Windows 7 retains the ReadyBoost feature but adds support for multiple USB keys or flash cards used at once. So, if you have a few old 1GB keys around gathering dust, it can’t hurt to plug them in, so long as you have the USB ports to spare. When you plug in a key, Windows 7 will bring up a prompt asking whether you want to open the drive in Windows Explorer or use the drive to speed up your system. Choose the latter:

In the following screen, choose the Use this device radio button and adjust the memory slider below it to the amount you want to dedicate to ReadyBoost:

This won’t change the drive in any fundamental way; you can always unplug it and redeploy it for normal storage down the road, or use the unallocated portion for storage in parallel with ReadyBoost. Note, though, that the file system, even with 64-bit Windows 7, will keep you from accessing more than 4GB of the memory per key or card. So don’t expect to bulk up on cheap 8GB keys and go wild.