It has been highly debated whether Vista's ReadyBoost actually works to speed up your system or is it an empty feature with a nice name. During a set of informal tests we performed prior to posting our Windows Vista Memory Tweak Guide we saw a noticeable increase in system response when ReadyBoost was used on systems with 1GB or less RAM, furthermore we saw an advantage of using it on laptops that generally come equipped with slower hard drives.
But until now such a feature was reserved for Vista users. Russian software developer MDO claims its software utility eBoostr can give you similar caching functionality allowing the use of either flash memory or an additional hard drive for boosting Windows XP's performance. According to their website, eBoostr can use up to 4 devices for "simultaneous smart caching." It will be interesting to see how well this can work using Windows XP's prefetcher and whether it just sits on top of it or goes deeper within the OS workings.