Boost Your System Speed

Hybrid hard drives, which embed a cache of flash memory inside a hard drive's 3.5-inch shell to improve its performance, aren't on the market yet. But they're just one way Vista uses flash memory; ordinary thumb drives can, cheaply and easily, let your PC read small, random bits of frequently accessed data, a Vista feature called ReadyBoost. Here's the thing: To maximize its efficiency, a ReadyBoost thumb drive should have the same amount of memory as is built into your system. In other words, match your 2GB of RAM with a 2GB flash drive for best performance.