Some once-useful features in Windows have become obsolete due to hardware advancements. One of them is ReadyBoost — if you're still trying to use it in 2025, it could do more harm than good.
Storage and memory have gotten much faster
In case you don't know, ReadyBoost is a Windows feature that was first introduced in Vista. It allows you to use a flash drive or SD card as a cache, essentially acting as additional RAM for your system. Since USB flash drives are faster than old spinning hard drives, ReadyBoost is a way to boost performance on older computers that don't have much RAM.
The biggest reason ReadyBoost is obsolete is because SSDs and system memory have gotten faster. ReadyBoost relies on USB speeds to provide cache from flash drives. This technique can work when using slow mechanical hard drives . But with SSDs built into every modern PC out of the box, you don’t need an additional cache anymore.
In fact, if you have an SSD installed in your system, Windows won't show you the ReadyBoost option. When ReadyBoost was first introduced in Windows Vista, SSDs were a luxury component found only in high-end products. Now, SSDs are commonplace, and the USB flash drives ReadyBoost uses simply aren't fast enough to keep up.
RAM is also getting really fast. The HP Omen Transcend 14, for example, has 7462 MT/s LPDDR5X memory, which is faster than the WD M.2 SSDs that laptops come with and significantly faster than any USB stick you might find in your drawer. As newer laptops move to LPCAMM2 memory, this trend will continue.
Modern systems also come with plenty of RAM; you'll find at least 8GB in most computers. ReadyBoost is designed specifically for systems with limited RAM, but when given enough memory, Windows features like SuperFetch will automatically cache frequently used files. As memory gets faster and cheaper, the low-RAM situations for which ReadyBoost was designed will disappear.
The performance increase is negligible, if not worse.
Assuming you can still get ReadyBoost up and running on your system. Assuming your system has a low-end HDD and RAM, you can get a performance boost. However, compared to the overall benefits you’ll get from upgrading to an SSD or more memory, this performance boost will be negligible.
In any case, when used with modern hardware, ReadyBoost comes with a significant performance hit. Unless you have a 10-year-old computer sitting around that you don’t want to spend money on upgrading, ReadyBoost won’t do much good. At best, ReadyBoost might prevent your old machine from crashing due to low memory, but that’s about it.
Using ReadyBoost can damage flash drives
Finally, using ReadyBoost can be harmful to the drives themselves. When you use a USB drive for ReadyBoost, the drive will undergo constant write operations as Windows updates its cache. Since flash memory only has a limited number of read/write cycles, you will accelerate the wear and tear of your drive.
Flash memory is not considered system RAM, and continued use of the feature can destroy a flash drive in a matter of months. Microsoft claims that ReadyBoost-enabled devices can last for 10 years or more, but given the finite read/write cycles, that claim is valid.
Regardless, Microsoft has been phasing this feature out in newer versions of Windows. Modern versions of Windows 11 have removed it entirely. While the company has yet to officially confirm whether ReadyBoost is dead, it has been proven.
ReadyBoost was exciting when Windows Vista launched, especially for those with low-end PC hardware. However, in a world of SSDs and super-fast system memory, it's outdated.
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