Does VAIO SD card slot supports Secure Digital High-Capacity cards

[Niska]

Hi,

someone asked this question in May but ... got no reply: Has anyone tried HDSD card (High capacity) type in a VAIO SD card slot?

The Vaio VGN-AR41S specs is rather quiet on the subject compared to the supported menory stick slot type which are listed at length.

Thanks in advance

PS: I did buy a plain 2 Bg SD memory card, fast enough to be accepted by Vista ReadyBoost but ... I don't see any return in increased boot speed 🙂

[Blencogo]

ReadyBoost is just a marketing ploy and a total waste of time. You will never see any increase in boot speed unless your Vaio has used all the 2048MB of RAM first - and it will never do that. Even then, your Vaio will probably write to a PageFile on your hard disc quicker than it can write to flash memory.

ReadyBoost is a gimmick designed for old computers that may have a maximum RAM of 512MB or less and cannot take any more and an old, very slow hard disc.

[budgetmil]

I don't know if HDSC cards are compatible, but if you find the answer, please let me know !

Regarding Readyboost, I agree with Blencogo. Readyboost stores some frequently used files on an external memory (USB Key or SD card). But the readyboost file is re-created each time you boot the machine. So, the effect of readyboost is :
1. During the boot, no effect (readyboost is not active at this stage)
2. After the boot, it slows down your machine because it must create the readyboost file on your USB key or SD Card. And SD Card accesses are not very fast. Vista SP1 may accelerate it (it should include DMA access for SD Cards, which should diminish the CPU usage when transferring data from/to SD Cards)
3. Once the file is created (which can take 2 or 3 minutes), it may accelerate your work, if, for example, you open Outlook, then close it, open Word, then close it, then reopen Outlook... Some have reported a gain of 2 seconds to open Ms Word !

Conclusion : don't use it unless you have a very slow hard drive and/or not enough RAM !