Intel Z68 SSD Caching

[horrorwood]

Is anybody else using this?

Obviously it is almost impossible to give you benchmarks of how it performs. But it really is good. I just do not see much talk about it.

I am using an OCZ Agility 3 64gb as cache for my 2TB hard-drive. It is really almost like having a 2TB SSD.

I have also BSOD'd a few times whilst overclocking and I have had no data loss as far as I can tell. It always does some "stuff" during my next boot (seems to write the data from the SSD back to the HDD) and all is fine again.

I use a 128gb M4 in my laptop (i7 2620qm) and a 64gb M4 in my work PC as the main drive, so I do have something to compare it to. Using SSD caching is very similar in performance as far as I can tell.

Just wondered if anyone else uses it?

 

[horrorwood]

Does it cache the entire physical drive or just the primary partition? Can you select which partition?

It does the whole drive I believe. I don't think you can select a partition to accelerate, only a drive.

I am glad it works so well, I did not fancy buying a 256gb SSD

 

[horrorwood]

I'm debating this for my upcoming build also. I'm getting a 64GB SSD and using a crappy 2.5" 500GB HDD.

SSD main + HDD storage

OR

HDD main + SSD caching?

HDD main and SSD caching. 2.5" hdd's are generally not bad due to smaller platters. I can't see it being a really old one with it being 500gb... anyway SSD caching will make up for it

Just set it up - ended up with 64Gb cache and 20Gb spare partition. BF3 on the spare partition, everything else caching.

Incredible - Windows boots in 13 seconds and a BF3 map loads in about 5-6!

It gets faster too

 

[horrorwood]

Thanks. What is the argument for doing it this way? Just as fast but then simpler with regards to installing programs and storing files since you don't have to direct the data anywhere specifically?

Yes exactly that. You do not even see the SSD, you just see a normal hard-drive which seems to be really fast 99% of the time..

Right , so for a setup with a 120 Gb SSD and a 'standard' hard drive of 500 GB or larger; in my case 640 Gb I am now thinking that it will be better for me just to install Windows (and possibly Office, or whatever) on the SSD and to keep the other drive mainly for data etc.

Is this correct?

I think i'd probably use caching still. It would use 60gb for the HDD. You could then install Windows on the 60gb left over?

 

[horrorwood]

What I'll probably end up doing is just getting the 64GB SSD now, installing my main apps and OS etc and using the 500GB as storage. Then eventually get another SSD to cache the 500GB HDD. From everything that I've found, it's definitely faster to use the SSD as a main drive. And I can't afford a bigger SSD for a while and it's the last thing I need to complete my build, been waiting long enough.

Yes it is faster to use just an SSD. But as I said it is really not that noticable. I think having 500gb of "fast" storage is a better solution. See here for comparisons:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/4

 

[horrorwood]

I can definitely see the benefit of both options. I think I'll initially start off with a small SSD as a main drive. If the data shuffling gets on my nerves too I'll cache a HDD. But since I don't really game or install much software, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

If you don't really game or install much software surely you'd be better off using cache?

My theory is everything you use regularly will be in the cache anyway