If you’re looking for a way to speed up your computer and you suspect that your slow computer performance could be related to the amount of memory you have installed, you may be able to take advantage of an inexpensive workaround. You’ll need to have Windows Vista loaded on the computer in question, and you’ll also need a USB flash drive.

Inexpensive Flash v. Expensive RAM

You can find an inexpensive USB flash drive just about anywhere these days. The larger retailers like Target will have these on sale as a back-to-school item. (If you don’t remember ever seeing flash drives on your school supply list, let me just say that times have changed and we’ll leave it at that.) The size of the flash drive doesn’t matter too much, so you can get away with using the smaller capacity drives –these will typically set you back less than $10.

Plug your USB flash drive into an available port and open the Removable Disk (F:) Properties panel by right-clicking on the Removable Disk icon. Activate the ReadyBoost tab and choose Use this device. Set the slider to reserve a certain amount of the space available on the flash drive for system use. The rest of the flash drive will be available for file storage, but the reserved amount will be used by the system as temporary memory.

Using ReadyBoost will effectively “upgrade” your computer’s installed memory, and make it easier to run multiple programs and process large files. It can also be helpful at boot-up and shut-down, when the computer is performing many additional operations that require a lot of memory.

The ReadyBoost option isn’t a perfect substitute for upgrading your computer’s RAM, however it does provide a less-expensive alternative to buying additional memory. This is the ideal solution for computers that may only have one memory slot, like a laptop. For these computers, a memory upgrade means taking your old memory chip out and replacing it. Unless you can sell the original memory chip or find another use for it, you could end up turning perfectly good memory into a wasted investment.

ReadyBoost is a new introduction to Windows Vista, so this option isn’t available for older versions of Windows. In my book, ReadyBoost is yet another reason to consider an upgrade to Vista if you haven’t already done so. You can also make a flash drive bootable with Vista and turn your flash drive into a low-cost, low-hassle way to create a dual-boot system.

Photo Credit: Ambuj Saxena, via Flickr