Does SSD Caching requires RAID setting? If so is it worth it?

b.cummins

b.cummins

b.cummins

Associate
Joined
23 Mar 2006
Posts
906
Location
Guildford, Surrey
Afternoon,

So having heard some good things about Intel SRT and SSD Caching, I thought i'd be able to make good use of my SSD drive in a new build.

I now have in my configuration:

a 250GB SSD (Main OS/Boot Drive)
a 1TB HDD (Files and Games)
a 60GB SSD Drive (unpurposed as of yet)

I set up a new build on windows 8 and set the sata controller to AHCI not thinking much about it, thinking I would be able to configure the 60GB SSD as a caching drive for the big HDD, I believe now doing some reading this can only be achieved if the SATA controller is set to RAID.

Now I will be reformatting the machine anyway, just curious as to whether it would be worth going down this route as I am not sure if any performance/features are lost not being in AHCI mode?
 
Those are some very convincing results there! Thanks and nice to hear from a couple of folks out there getting some very tangible improvements.

Just one question you did this with a Boot HDD will I still see performance gains with a secondary HDD as I boot from my SSD?
 
you can only cache/speed up the os hdd,any other hdd's wont be cache'd

raid contains all the ahci drivers so you wont lose trim ect
 
not if you already have the os on a 250gb ssd

i thought you meant for a new build using old 60gb ssd
 
I have a 360gb SSD for my C: drive and a 120gb SSD with a 3tb D: drive HDD. I had that running cached.... until I started ****ing around with the drivers/software and it stopped working. :( Note: it did spit my 120gb down to 2 x 60gb (max size allowed for caching).

I would love to get that 3tb cached again but I am scared I may screw the system up if I start tinkering.
 
Last edited:
yh i remember reading on how to do it but its complicated,never tried it myself

i think they are missing a trick not letting you cache any hdd
 
Thinking about it a little bit, just to play devil's advocate:

What if I changed over configuration having:

Boot/OS/Storage: 1TB HDD + 60GB SSD as Cache
Games: 250GB SSD

As opposed to my current configuration:
OS: 250GB SSD
Games and Storage: 1TB HDD
No real purpose: 60GB SSD

Does this sound madly detrimental or a good idea?
 
you could do,could try it and see

though the best performance is os on ssd,but caching isn't far away

can clone current os to hdd and back to ssd if you decide not to cache
 
I wouldn't. I would keep the 250gb as your system drive and use the 60gb & 1tb for your gaming/storage drive. The size of games these days your 250 will be full in no time flat. Believe it or not, I am starting to run low on my 3tb drive! There are only games installed on it. ;)
 
HaloUK said:
I wouldn't. I would keep the 250gb as your system drive and use the 60gb & 1tb for your gaming/storage drive. The size of games these days your 250 will be full in no time flat. Believe it or not, I am starting to run low on my 3tb drive! There are only games installed on it. ;)
Click to expand...

Very true, although I tend to keep myself to a fixed number of games installed at any given time, which has worked out quite well so far. If you take the average game to be 15GB that probably translates as about 10 games comfortably fitting at any given time, which is more than what I would be juggling at any one time.

In the windows 8 environment, the boot time so far has been phenomenal, I don't mind a little slack on it, just wondering how much I would detriment it going doing the SSD caching route?
 
Just to give a general update in case people come across this and get the wrong idea of SSD caching:

I've done a lot of reading and the consensus now is that in more recent iterations of SRT, you can indeed cache any HDD even if it is not attributed to the OS. I will be attempting this later this week so will update once I know for sure it definitely works in case anyone is considering this route and is put off by previous assumptions made in this thread!
 
In the unlikely event anyone was after clarity on this - you can indeed cache any drive, whether it be the OS drive or a secondary HDD. I am not sure if this is universal either, but you can change the acceleration mode at any time too (i.e. enhanced or maximized) within windows.

I can say I am very pleased with the results, there is certainly a tangible difference in installing (maximized only) and loading games.
 
Not sure where people in the thread got the idea that you cant cache any HDD. I built a system over a month ago, googled for SSD caching, and read the first guide I came to, and set it all up on a non OS drive.
My HTPC drive setup is
120gb Evo - OS
60GB Crucial M3 - SSD Cache for the sammys
Raid 0 1TB Samsung F1's
60gb SSD - media recording drive (Xsplit/Avermedia Card - for the rare occasion I capture on the HTPC, will replace with larger, but ran out of money).
 
you couldn't when it first came out,but probably possible now with latest bios and rst software

but at first for a while you could only cache the os hdd,i know I tried it
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom