A technique to speed up Windows Vista is Windows Vista ReadyBoost. It uses a USB stick to create an extra cache of data which is used a lot.
This Windows Vista Readyboost technique uses the USB stick as an extra cache between the processor and the hard disk. Because the memory on a USB stick is static, (and therefore it keeps its data when the computer is shut down) this cache is directly available again when the computer boots up.
Not every USB stick is compatible for this technique. The stick has to have a minimum of 256 MB free space and an average reading speed of 4 KB en 1,75 MB/sec at writing activities of 512 KB.Only the USB sticks which fulfill the these conditions, may call themselves 'Enhanced for ReadyBoost'.
When you plug in a 'ReadyBoost Ready' USB stick, the 'AutoPlay' screen appears.
New in this screen is the option 'Speed up my system with ReadyBoost'.
If there is enough free space on the USB stick then Windows Vista reserves memory with a maximum of three-times the RAM-memory in the computer for this technique.
Except USB sticks it also supports flash cards like, SD cards, MMC cards, MS Pro cards etc.
The service behind this technique is called 'emdmgmt.dll' which is located in the 'WindowsSystem32' folder.
This service runs as a part of a 'service host process' (svhost).
As soon as a new USB stick is detected, emdmgmt.dll scans the USB stick and does a benchmark.
If the results are sufficient then Windows Vista will offer to use the USB stick to speed up your system and creates the file 'ReadyBoost.sfcache'.
This is the cache of this technique. The managing for this cache will be done by the caching-service 'ecache.sys', which can be found in the folder 'WindowsSystem32drivers'.
It is just one of the techniques which Microsoft has developed to speed up Windows Vista.
This technique is very useful to speed up for example notebooks which cannot be upgraded with some extra memory or when it is a bit too expensive to upgrade the notebook.
You simply plug in your USB stick and use Windows Vista ReadyBoost to speed up your notebook.