I recently talked about using my iPod Shuffle to cache my system's pagefile by making use of Vista's new ReadyBoost technology. As Scott noted in the comments, there is some worry about wearing out flash memory due to the high number of writes required to cache such an I/O intensive file.
In a follow up comment I mentioned that Microsoft is apparently aware of such concerns and they have attempted to address them by being
smart about how and when we do our writes to the device.
Well that's all well and good, but I don't want to speed up my Vista install at the cost of shortening the life of my beloved iPod. So perhaps it's time to invest in a ReadyBoost compatible flash device, yeah?
How about these?
Last night I stopped by the local Micro Center on the way home from my soccer match... I was officially there to get some prices for work-related stuff. But while there I was able to confirm that their house branded 2GB flash drives are ReadyBoost compatible. I had a sales associate confirm this by pulling a random flash drive out the the bin, and plugging it into a couple of their demo PCs (running Vista, obviously) in the back of the store.
The best part about these drives is their price point, a whopping $15.99. So if you're looking for a ReadyBoost capable drive and you've got an extra $16 in the couch cushions I'd recommend giving the Micro Center drives a try. If you don't have one in your area, I think you can still order them via the web and have them shipped to you.
Resources
On a side note: I picked up a couple of the Micro Soft house branded 1GB drives this past Christmas and I can confirm that they are not ReadyBoost compatible (and the sales associate at the store said the same thing last night).