Intel Smart Response Technology
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Just checked out the Anandtech article on SRT. Strikes me as somewhat wasted on the highest-end platform and would be very, very good on the more affordable end of the market. The potential for getting close to SSD performance on low-cost H67, i3 system with cheap 40GB SSD is pretty mouth-watering; surely those that take up Z68 will be running dedicated 60GB+ SSD's already.
This looks like a good tech, but if you read the Anandtech review from start to finish they go on to note that if you run a handful of applications it's great, but if you don't then it has quite serious drawbacks. For example, it tends to discard data quite readily if you don't run it often, and you're back to square one in performance.
If you can afford a proper SSD, it looks better to just take that path.
If you can afford a proper SSD, it looks better to just take that path.
I this not similar to using something like a program called fancycache? It uses your system ram as a buffer to your mechanical drives? I still keep meaning to try it out using 2 of my 8 gig on my mechanical drives. Its supposed to show a good boost when loading games.
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Surely that drawback applies equally to 'proper' SSD - they are not big enough to store everything on, so again you only gain acceleration of a select amount of data.
This is the problem with SSD. Just because I could easily afford to spend £150 and only get 64gb of hard drive space doesn't mean I want to. I consider it very poor value for money.
This system looks like many of the benefits, though obviously not all, without the poor value for money.
That's the thing though, with a dedicated SSD you can select the applications that will benefit from the SSD (especially the whole OS as well) and then they're guaranteed to get the best performance. A lot of the stuff that Smart Response will cache will probably show little improvement (if they're large files) or will sacrifice other more important files from being cached when you need them quickly. With your own setup you have control.
What would be good would be a dedicated SSD (maybe 120gb) and then a small 40gb SSD as a cache for your mechanical storage drives. That way, you've got guaranteed performance on the large SSD and boosted performance on the large storage as well. Best of both worlds. That's where I see the caching maybe coming in handy if I buy a larger SSD some time in the future and decide on Z68. I don't regret getting a small 40GB SSD for OS as it's transformed the speed and responsiveness of my PC, and for just £50! There aren't any other upgrades that are so cheap and make such a large difference to overall PC usage. I dare say you'd have to agree with me if you tried my setup before and after. In that respect, I have to say they're very good value for money, removing a horrible bottleneck that we've had for years.
What would be good would be a dedicated SSD (maybe 120gb) and then a small 40gb SSD as a cache for your mechanical storage drives. That way, you've got guaranteed performance on the large SSD and boosted performance on the large storage as well. Best of both worlds. That's where I see the caching maybe coming in handy if I buy a larger SSD some time in the future and decide on Z68. I don't regret getting a small 40GB SSD for OS as it's transformed the speed and responsiveness of my PC, and for just £50! There aren't any other upgrades that are so cheap and make such a large difference to overall PC usage. I dare say you'd have to agree with me if you tried my setup before and after. In that respect, I have to say they're very good value for money, removing a horrible bottleneck that we've had for years.
Soldato
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[TW]Fox;19128604 said:
Whilst i agree SSD's may be overpriced, i think they are cheaper than you are suggesting. OC are selling the 60gb vertex for £74, or the 60gb vertex2 for £84, either of which are considerably cheaper than £150. £150 gets you a 120gb vertex while the 120gb vertex2 is £175.
too expensive for me, yes, but double the storage you are claiming for that sort of money.
Question: Could you get a 120GB SSD and split it, 80/40, using 40 for the ISRT and the 80 left for an OS install and programs that you want to put on.
That way you have:
This would be great, but I don't think it's possible from what I've read, the SSD for caching must be a lone hard drive?
Infact, another question. What does the caching SSD do if you have an SSD for the OS already? Can you only use ISRT with mechanical drives?
That way you have:
- a fast OS
- the critical applications constantly fast
- the benefit of a hybrid system for media and gaming, which would cost loads to transfer onto a solely SSD setup
- all from one SSD
This would be great, but I don't think it's possible from what I've read, the SSD for caching must be a lone hard drive?
Infact, another question. What does the caching SSD do if you have an SSD for the OS already? Can you only use ISRT with mechanical drives?
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I think you're right, but remember that the SSD will have to perform with the cache and the OS at the same time, so depending on what's being cached, there might not be much of a point to that. It would be better if you could tell it to only cache from a certain HDD, and have the other partition on the SSD as the OS, though really once all's said and done, it's a lot easier to just use the SSD alone, and if you must cache the other drive buy a cheap 32GB SSD.
Some Gigabyte Z68 boards are now going to be bundled with 20GB mSATA SSDs for the smart response to work out of the box. It'll be interesting to see how easy that is for less-savvy users to set up.
Some Gigabyte Z68 boards are now going to be bundled with 20GB mSATA SSDs for the smart response to work out of the box. It'll be interesting to see how easy that is for less-savvy users to set up.
Hmm, these screenshots are interesting:
So it looks like you can choose the disk you want to accelerate. Still not sure on using a single SSD though. I think the read/writes would be interrupted for different processes.
Is anyone using ISRT?
So it looks like you can choose the disk you want to accelerate. Still not sure on using a single SSD though. I think the read/writes would be interrupted for different processes.
Is anyone using ISRT?
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I'm pretty sure that you can do what you are suggesting, which is the ideal setup.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/05/11/intel_smart_response_technology_srt/3
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Wait, so if I understand this correctly:
You are effectively using an SSD as a cache for the normal HDDs? So you can buy a 40GB SSD, and use that to speed up the performance of a 2TB RAID 0 config for example?
Quite jealous I don't have a Z68 chipset mobo and processor to work with it
Would be awesome
Seems Intel are released a 20GB drive solely for this purpose in fact
You are effectively using an SSD as a cache for the normal HDDs? So you can buy a 40GB SSD, and use that to speed up the performance of a 2TB RAID 0 config for example?
Quite jealous I don't have a Z68 chipset mobo and processor to work with it
Would be awesomeSeems Intel are released a 20GB drive solely for this purpose in fact
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[TW]Fox;19250713 said:
Well, firstly you're probably going to need to go SLC, which increases the costs considerably especially if you want to take advantage of write caching. Secondly there's a lack of control, it's nice to know what performance you can expect ahead of time, if the file or game you want to load 'right now' isn't in the cache it'll be irritating.
I can't really see it taking off with enthusiastsuntil SSD's are inexpensive enough that they already have everything important on their SSD's already and can afford to accelerate their media drives more or less as an afterthought. It does make sense for OEM's and machines for family members, who won't be inclined to manage two volumes.
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Thanks Zarf, good find and good news. I'd get a nice 120GB SSD now and actually put 30 of it on the ISRT, just to speed up my media drives. The rest can be my OS and some select programs that I want constant high performance from.
I think it's perfect for enthusiasts who want a stepping stone to a full SSD setup and don't want to micro manage everything. As above, using the majority of the drive for an OS and select programs for consistent performance. Then 20/30GB of it for caching media etc.