I’ve spend the last few days building a set of Virtual PC’s running Windows 2008 to cater for my different development needs. As I was starting from scratch anyway, I spent some time researching ways to optimize the performance of my VPC’s. Andrew Connell has an excellent HOWTO on several ways to achieve better performing VPC’s here.

But there is one tip that he fails to mention: ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost allows you to augment your system’s memory by using an USB 2.0 drive, effectively adding flash memory that Windows can use for paging. As flash memory has far better access times than your average harddrive, this results in a noticable boost of performance.

I never used ReadyBoost before. I didn’t notice much of a difference when running regular programs, at least not enough to sacrifice a perfectly good USB drive (At the cost of what? $10? I do have to take a good long look at my piorities). But in combination with a VPC, the results are in a word amazing. No more visible lags, no more moments of click-and-wait. Yes, I am definately a believer now.

Another tip: if you do not like the idea of an USB stick..well..sticking out of your PC with the added risk of snagging it behind something and tearing out your flash memory (NOT a good thing), see if your PC has a slot for a memory card like an SD card. They are a bit more expensive but they basically disappear inside the slot so you can leave them there. That way you can’t forget to bring your extra memory either