It is possible to use external RAM for a laptop, yes but not as an alternative for the internal memory of your laptop. If you are looking for ways to upgrade your laptop’s RAM or are looking for a fast way to enhance your laptop then this article can help you out!
In this article, we will guide you if how you can use external RAM for your laptop to increase the performance of your system.
Can We Use External RAM for Laptop?
The answer is yes, you can use external RAM for Laptop.
You can use external RAM for Laptop but it is not easy to do so. You will need a special type of RAM which is called SO-DIMM. SO-DIMM is not a normal type of RAM. It is smaller and costlier than normal RAMs.
There are two types of SO-DIMMs:
1) DDR3 SO-DIMM
2) DDR4 SO-DIMM
The first one has less speed and less capacity than DDR4 SO-DIMM. The maximum capacity of DDR3 SO-DIMM is 16GB which is good enough for the laptop’s purpose. But you cannot run high-end games or video editing software with that much capacity.
For high-end games, the minimum requirement of RAM is 8GB, so you’ll need to buy 2 x 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMMs if you want to run high-end games or video editing software on your laptop.
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Is it Worth Using External RAM?
In theory, yes, you can use external RAM with a laptop. In practice, though, it’s probably not worth the trouble.
The easiest way to upgrade the RAM in your laptop is to find what configuration it uses and buy a matching set of modules. You can usually find this information on the manufacturer’s website or with a quick search.
(Corsair offers a handy tool that will tell you what memory your laptop uses.) Just be sure to buy from a reputable dealer so that you know you’re getting what you pay for.
External RAM works in much the same way as internal RAM. It’s just packaged differently for portability and convenience. Most external RAM connects by USB cable, but some have a proprietary connector to plug directly into the machine.
The main difference between external and internal RAM is that external modules have a second power supply that converts AC power into something the modules can use.
Internal RAM has its own power source, so there’s no need for an external module to provide one as well. This is why external modules are often bulky and heavy — they need extra room for their power supply and circuitry.
Related: 6 Easy Ways To Charge Your Laptop Battery In Your Car Without Adapter
Does ReadyBoost Increase RAM?
Unfortunately, the USB ports on your computer do not transfer data fast enough to increase the speed of your machine. If you want to increase the performance of your computer, you will need to install more RAM inside your PC.
However, if you have exhausted all potential upgrades, you can use a USB flash drive as a last resort. This is where ReadyBoost comes in.
ReadyBoost is a feature built into Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10 that enables you to use a USB flash drive for extra memory (RAM). Plugin a USB flash drive into an available port and right-click on it and select Properties. Click on the ReadyBoost tab. You will see three options:
- Do not use this device
- Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost
- Use this device
To enable ReadyBoost, select “Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost.” This option tells Windows that you will never use the USB flash drive for storage purposes.
Is ReadyBoost Harmful?
Yes, it can be harmful to your laptop. It can also be beneficial.
ReadyBoost is a Windows feature designed to speed up some computer systems by using flash memory, typically on a USB flash drive, as an extra source of RAM. The idea is that memory on a USB drive — even a slow one — will provide faster access than the hard drive itself.
How to Use USB Flash Drive as Memory?
You can use a USB flash drive as RAM, but it is usually not the best solution for several reasons.
A more efficient way of improving your computer’s performance is to increase the amount of RAM. However, if you cannot install more RAM, or doing so would be too expensive, you can use a USB flash drive as virtual memory to speed up your computer.
Virtual RAM
A USB Flash Drive can be used as virtual RAM, allowing you to increase the amount of available RAM for your system. This is useful when you have a limited amount of memory and either don’t want or can’t afford to install more.
It assumes that you have at least one working USB Flash Drive with more than 128MB of space (the more space the better). The drive should be formatted using FAT32. If it’s not, then you’ll need to reformat the drive.
you can use a USB flash drive as RAM. Some motherboards support booting from a USB thumb drive that is configured to act like a hard disk, which can be used as virtual RAM (VRAM), but it is not as fast as the system’s regular RAM. The speed of VRAM depends on the speed of the USB drive and the amount of data that can be transferred per second.
If you have a computer with 2GB of RAM and your computer’s motherboard supports booting from a USB flash drive, you can convert your pen drive into RAM in Windows 10.
Also read: Why Is My MacBook Air Making A Loud Fan Noise? [Solved]
Here’s how to set up a USB flash drive as RAM in Windows 10.
- First, connect the USB flash drive to your laptop and make sure you have at least the free space required for ReadyBoost. The minimum recommended space is 256MB, but Windows recommends using at least 1GB of space.
- Next, right-click on the connected USB flash drive in File Explorer and click Properties.
- If it isn’t already selected by default, change the Optimize For the menu to ReadyBoost instead of Speed or Default (or any other option).
- Next, select Use This Device and then click OK to apply changes.
ReadyBoost
Using the ReadyBoost feature, Windows 8 can utilize the free space on your USB flash drive as an additional memory source. You may be surprised to see how much faster your computer can become.
ReadyBoost is a feature of Windows 8 (and previous versions of Windows) that makes your computer faster by using free space on your USB flash drive as an additional memory source.
A USB flash drive’s read/write speed is much higher than that of a hard disk, so using one for this purpose definitely has its advantages.
The access time for a flash drive is only a few milliseconds, which is why they are so much faster than traditional spinning hard drives. This can greatly increase the performance of certain tasks like loading programs and browsing web pages on your computer.
ReadyBoost works best if you have little RAM or a slow hard drive (HDD). If you have at least 3 GB RAM and an SSD installed in your system, then you probably won’t notice any significant benefits – especially if you are working with large files such as videos or high-resolution photos.
Conclusion
It’s pretty clear that we can use external RAM with our laptop. Honestly, it’s just really difficult to work efficiently using our laptops with such low RAM capacities.