I did some research and decided to try the Windows 7 feature called ReadyBoost.  Basically, you put in a USB or SD card and the system puts the swap file on it, thus speeding up the system.  I have seen mixed reviews of the effectiveness of this technique.

I found the fastest USB thumb drive for my workstation and fastest SD Card for the Asus netbook.  After I did the SD card, I realized the max swap file was 4 gigs, so I only only got 4g instead of 8g on the USB drive.  I plugged them both in.

I don’t know what I was expecting.  A sudden increase in speed?  I guess it was anti-climatic.  Here is my advice to the Windows ReadyBoost team.  When someone uses Readyboost, it should ask the user if they want to run a few days of benchmarking to see how effective the feature is.  In other words, they need to provide some feedback into how it’s doing.

This could be a screen that shows performance improvements.  It could mean delaying the execution of the feature for a few days to run baseline tests and then enable it and compare.  I am just saying that I seriously have no idea if it’s working or not.  For all I know, it might not even be enabled right.

Lesson:  When you have a feature that only works invisibly, you need to provide some feedback to the user to let them know it’s working right.  Otherwise, they won’t appreciate the feature.