Readyboost.sfcache keeps dissappearing

I am starting to wonder if I am indeed nuts, but I might as well ask.

After buying two different 2 Gig flash drives (both didnt have the necessary
speed) I exchanged them for the Sandisk cruzer 2.0 Gig titanium which
immediatly let me set up readyboost options (I also had it formatted as NTFS)
which I set once and didnt mind for a few hours (noticed speed increases,
great)

Later I checked the drive and it had mostly unused disk space and the
readyboost.sfCache file was missing from the drive. Annoyed, I went back to
readyboost tab and it did say "use this device" as checked. and I am using
1840 megabytes of the drive. Hit OK, and the sfcache file shows up again like
normal.

Now I am paranoid and keep checking back with the drive and as little as 1
minue later the cache file is gone and the drive remains mostly empty. What
the hell does this mean and what can I do about it? Not once has it told me
the device was incompatable or too slow. I could check the drive speeds but I
forgot how to access that if anyone can let me know. Id be grateful if there
was an explanation of if anyone else had this problem. does the cache file
come and go? do you need it to actually have readboost enabled?


g

I initially used the Cruizer and Readyboost accepted it. Unfortunately (or
fortuitously) my wife wouldn't part with it so I had to find my own. I am
using an A-Data from Newegg. Only the PD7 series is fast enough. You can
get a 4G PD7 (today!) for $43 - my readyboost support has been perfect.

For your other question, you can go to \HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\EMDMgmt (or just search for EMDMgmt, WriteSpeedKBs, or
ReadSpeedKBs) and look at the stats of your flash-drive devices. If you have
run the 'test' for each of them you will find the values for 'WriteSpeedKBs'
and 'ReadSpeedKBs' are non-zero. My A-Data has 10392 and 5379 respectively
as a reference to use against your Cruizer drive - post your numbers if it
isn't too much trouble.

"gulicious" wrote:

> I am starting to wonder if I am indeed nuts, but I might as well ask.
>
> After buying two different 2 Gig flash drives (both didnt have the necessary
> speed) I exchanged them for the Sandisk cruzer 2.0 Gig titanium which
> immediatly let me set up readyboost options (I also had it formatted as NTFS)
> which I set once and didnt mind for a few hours (noticed speed increases,
> great)
>
> Later I checked the drive and it had mostly unused disk space and the
> readyboost.sfCache file was missing from the drive. Annoyed, I went back to
> readyboost tab and it did say "use this device" as checked. and I am using
> 1840 megabytes of the drive. Hit OK, and the sfcache file shows up again like
> normal.
>
> Now I am paranoid and keep checking back with the drive and as little as 1
> minue later the cache file is gone and the drive remains mostly empty. What
> the hell does this mean and what can I do about it? Not once has it told me
> the device was incompatable or too slow. I could check the drive speeds but I
> forgot how to access that if anyone can let me know. Id be grateful if there
> was an explanation of if anyone else had this problem. does the cache file
> come and go? do you need it to actually have readboost enabled?
>
>
> g

I am having the same problem and there are no solutions to be found online and this is the only post stating this problem. Is there any one out there that knows what is going on here. I have a SD Cruzer Micro 1gb drive and the read write speeds are well above minimum specs.

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I have seen this very complaint
several times on different boards (at one time I made them). If your actual
Cruzer speeds are high enough, you have an extremely rare one.

I had a 2G version that sometimes worked but mostly it did not. The
confusing thing was that ReadyBoost initially accepted the device. After
enough failures and after I really dug in and looked at the ReadSpeedKBs and
WriteSpeedKBs values (see my post previous to this one), I found that the
actual ReadyBoost metrics in the registry were really slightly lower than
minimum ReadyBoost requirements.

Sandisk only claims to work with ReadyBoost with their very latest Cruzer
'Contour' and only on the 8 & 4 gig models (as of 4/19/07). Go to the
Sandisk web-site and just search for ReadyBoost if you do not believe me.
The bottom line is that you need to get a flash-drive that is fast enough wrt
random read/write speeds (documented in the minimum ReadyBoost requirements).
There are many flash-drives that meet those requirements but the normal
'fast' Cruzer that everyone is trying to use, is not one of them.


"Tim Rosenburg" wrote:

> I am having the same problem and there are no solutions to be found online and this is the only post stating this problem. Is there any one out there that knows what is going on here. I have a SD Cruzer Micro 1gb drive and the read write speeds are well above minimum specs.
>
> EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
> http://www.eggheadcafe.com
>