Can you upgrade RAM with a usb stick

[Jeffke09]

so my question is can you upgrade youre RAM with a USB-stick. And if not how can i upgrade my RAM without screwing my laptop open.
(reason: i play minecraft and need more RAM for a modpack(sevetechages))

 

[bassfisher6522]

Back in the day with windows 7 you could've or sort of could. It was called "Ready Boost". It's out dated technology now.

As it stands now.....No!

You physically have to upgrade RAM.

 

[Jeffke09]

Back in the day with windows 7 you could've or sort of could. It was called "Ready Boost". It's out dated technology now.

As it stands now.....No!

You physically have to upgrade RAM.

can i upgrade my RAM with usb or do i need to open my laptop

 

[Bastet]

ReadyBoost is still available which is akin to virtual RAM. You use a 16GB or 32Gb USB drive & under its properties there should be a ReadyBoost tab.

 

[BigFeet]

Ready boost with a USB stick isn't going to help you gaming. Flash drive are much too slow and using ready boost doesn't actually work like ram. I've tried it back on Windows 7. I saw no gaming improvement at all. You can try it, and maybe it'll free up enough for the modpack, but I doubt it will. You really need to upgrade the physical ram.

 

[bassfisher6522]

can i upgrade my RAM with usb or do i need to open my laptop

No....you have to open up your laptop and upgrade it physically. You'll need to check with your laptop mfg and get the upgrade specs to see what's the max upgrade you can use....storage and speed.

 

[Bighorn]

Right, open the panel on the back/bottom of the Notebook/Laptop to get to it. And plug the exact Make and Model name and number in at www.crucial.com if needing to know what it will take, most have only 2 slots and run 2GB, 4GB, 8GB modules and some 16GB. A few have 1 soldered-on module and 1 available slot. Crucial also offers a scanning program to get the information needed.
The modules

 

[Wolfie]

Before you spend any money on more RAM, check your vendor manual for your device and see how much RAM is supported, it might only be a max of 8GB so no point in buying 16GB of RAM.

 

[Serdar Yalçın]

ReadyBoost is still available which is akin to virtual RAM. You use a 16GB or 32Gb USB drive & under its properties there should be a ReadyBoost tab.

You can only find the tab if you have a HDD, if you have SSD, as already SSDs are faster it will not be listed.

 

[Serdar Yalçın]

ReadyBoost is still available which is akin to virtual RAM. You use a 16GB or 32Gb USB drive & under its properties there should be a ReadyBoost tab.

ReadyBoost is not akin to virtual RAM. It was just to increase startup time of Windows, but copying files using in Windows started to USB drive. It does not have any effect on other than startup.

 

[Steve Mann]

No. Thumb drives are the slowest memory you can use.

First, go to the website for memory manufacturers. (I like Crucial). They all have an online tool to determine the maximum memory you can buy for your model of PC. If you can increase your memory this way, then this is the best solution.

Second, if your RAM is already maxed out, you can buy an M.2 Portable SSD Enclosure. (https://www.ugreen.com/products/enclosure-for-m-2-pci-e-nvme-ssd), and a 500Gb NVME M.2 SSD. The one I linked to will support USB 3.1 Gen 2 and can support up to 10 Gbps (about 1gBps) which is much faster than any thumb drive.

 

[M1911Jim]

ReadyBoost is not akin to virtual RAM. It was just to increase startup time of Windows, but copying files using in Windows started to USB drive. It does not have any effect on other than startup.

I think you may have meant "decrease startup time".

 

[Steve Mann]

I always laugh when I see these "speed up your PC" articles when all they do is take a few seconds off the startup time. In a typical day you will spend, what, one minute in startup? Then 420 minutes doing productive work. Wow, getting that one minute down to 55 seconds must be so important to some.

 

[M1911Jim]

I always laugh when I see these "speed up your PC" articles when all they do is take a few seconds off the startup time. In a typical day you will spend, what, one minute in startup? Then 420 minutes doing productive work. Wow, getting that one minute down to 55 seconds must be so important to some.

With a situation requiring multiple restarts when remotely troubleshooting a problem, 30 seconds can seem like an eternity.

 

[Bastet]

You can only find the tab if you have a HDD, if you have SSD, as already SSDs are faster it will not be listed.

Op didn’t state whether they were using SSD or HDD so I replied believing they had HDD as these are the most common.

OK, to be accurate ReadyBoost is a cache between the RAM & HDD.

ReadyBoost - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was trying to simplify things.

 

[Wolfie]

See also.

How to change virtual memory size on Windows 10

If your PC runs low on virtual memory, you can adjust the size using Settings and Command Prompt.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[Walldoo99]

To upgrade your ram, you have to install more ram
I never got any results to brag about adjusting v memory or using the ready boot. A ssd will help boot faster and they are cheap.