older PC - SSD as a cache? Any other upgrade ideas?

[Angilion]

Over the years, I've changed from wanting almost every new bit of kit to looking about my PC as it is and thinking "it'll do". As a result, my knowledge is a long way out of date and I'd appreciate some suggestions about any possible upgrades to my PC.

What I've got now is a S775 system:

P5K/EPU board (P35 chipset)
Core 2 Q6600 at 3.2GHz (max practical o/c)
8GB DDR2-800/PC2-6400 at stock (unstable at any o/c). 4x2GB, so no room for more.
Radeon 7950 at 1GHz GPU 1.4GHz RAM (max practical o/c)
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 HDD
Win 7 Home Premium

A SSD is the only upgrade that leaps out at me. I'm using ~480GB of that drive, with ~400GB for games. I use Steam and GOG, you now how it is. So I see 3 options with an SSD:

1) Straight swap, which require at least a 500GB SSD and even then I'd be close to being out of space. Not worth the cost.

2) Use a smaller SSD and put stuff I think I'll use most on it, i.e. use it as a manually managed cache. Often suggested, but manually managing caching seems inefficient and bothersome to me. I didn't like being short of storage space back in the early years of HDDs when I didn't have a choice. I don't want to choose to go back to that.

3) Use a smaller SSD as a cache and have my computer manage it. Seems like the best idea, but what would be the best way to do it? A look around found half a dozen bits of software for it, almost all requiring specific hardware, all from several years ago and none with any reviews apart from the one from Intel (which has hardware requirements my PC doesn't have).

I'm hoping someone will say something like "Everyone is using Acme SSD cache software nowadays, it works with everything and only costs £10"

Other than that, does anyone see any scope for a meaningful upgrade short of buying all or almost all of a new PC? If I'm going to replace the motherboard, CPU, memory and CPU cooler, I may as well buy a new PC and just move my graphics card over. Some messing about with the configurator gives me somewhere in the region of £600 for something good. But then I consider my current PC and think "It'll do"

 

[P4Clock]

buy a 120gb ssd for the OS and main small app's like chrome and so on.

i told my mum i have upgraded her pc and all i did as change case and drop a boot SSD in it. mum dad and sister and very happy with the speed of there new system

 

[Cern]

Get a 500GB SSD, install Windows, apps and your most frequently played games on it.

Move all your file storage and games you don't play often to the HDD.

This should breathe a fair bit of new life into your system. I speak as someone who until only very recently was using a Q6600 8GB system and I got a good couple of extra years usage out of it by fitting a SSD.

 

[Angilion]

Is manually managing a cache really the only option? If so, why? A large part of the point of a cache is for it to be managed automatically.

It can't be the only option, since SSHDs exist.

 

[pingu666]

sshd's have not enough of the ssd part, so are meh

honestly having windows on a ssd is great, and completely worth it, transformative.

so put windows and important programs on ssd, then less used or less effected by hd speed stuff on your mechanical drive.

its worth getting a ssd, and will make the pc nearly as fast as a super ninja whizz bang expensive pc for day to day windows stuff.

 

[Angilion]

I'll clarify the question, since the replies so far have been about using an SSD as a manually managed cache, which I said I don't want to do, or buying a SSD with a large enough capacity to completely replace my HDD, which I ruled out on the basis of cost/benefit.

To paraphrase the question:

Does anyone have any information on a way of using an SSD as a cache for the main HDD and which will work on my existing PC and which doesn't require manually managing the cache? The computer should be doing that, not me. A properly managed ~250 GB SSD would make a lot of difference. Even a ~120 GB would. If it's impossible, please tell me why. It seems like a very obvious thing.

 

[joeyjojo]

Not in Windows. With ZFS one can set any number of storage and cache devices and they "just work", but you'd have to switch to BSD or Linux for that.

In an ideal world your current HDD would be a smaller OS/programs partition and a larger data one, and you could easily clone the OS one onto an SSD. If not and you don't want to shell out for a 500G SSD you're looking at a fresh install on an SSD and cleaning up the HDD for storage.

 

[Armageus]

1) Straight swap, which require at least a 500GB SSD and even then I'd be close to being out of space. Not worth the cost.

Costs of SSDs are constantly coming down (at least in relation to hard drives).

2) Use a smaller SSD and put stuff I think I'll use most on it, i.e. use it as a manually managed cache. Often suggested, but manually managing caching seems inefficient and bothersome to me. I didn't like being short of storage space back in the early years of HDDs when I didn't have a choice. I don't want to choose to go back to that.

It's hardly the huge bother you make it out to be - unless you literally use every single program you have installed all the time, then does it matter too much if a few games that you hardly play load slower (as are still on hard drive), whilst everything you do use daily or commonly loads quicker?

3) Use a smaller SSD as a cache and have my computer manage it. Seems like the best idea, but what would be the best way to do it? A look around found half a dozen bits of software for it, almost all requiring specific hardware, all from several years ago and none with any reviews apart from the one from Intel (which has hardware requirements my PC doesn't have).

Outside of Enterprise solutions (where they have huge amounts of storage that isn't feasible to be all SSD), you won't find what you are looking for.
Software caching options died a death as soon as mainstream (120Gb/250Gb/500Gb) drive sizes became affordable. Even SSHD look like they will have a relatively limited lifespan, as they just filled a niche gap for e.g. laptops that can only take a single drive.

I'm hoping someone will say something like "Everyone is using Acme SSD cache software nowadays, it works with everything and only costs £10"

Everyone is using a SSD for the boot drive and commonly used stuff, with secondary drives for other less commonly used stuff.

It can't be the only option, since SSHDs exist.

It isn't the only option, but it the only viable option.

To paraphrase the question:

Does anyone have any information on a way of using an SSD as a cache for the main HDD and which will work on my existing PC and which doesn't require manually managing the cache? The computer should be doing that, not me. A properly managed ~250 GB SSD would make a lot of difference. Even a ~120 GB would. If it's impossible, please tell me why. It seems like a very obvious thing.

It's not impossible, but outside of enterprise solutions there is hardly a need for it now (due to SSD prices decreasing, and capacity increasing).

 

[Angilion]

Not in Windows. With ZFS one can set any number of storage and cache devices and they "just work", but you'd have to switch to BSD or Linux for that.

Outside of Enterprise solutions (where they have huge amounts of storage that isn't feasible to be all SSD), you won't find what you are looking for.
Software caching options died a death as soon as mainstream (120Gb/250Gb/500Gb) drive sizes became affordable. Even SSHD look like they will have a relatively limited lifespan, as they just filled a niche gap for e.g. laptops that can only take a single drive.

Thanks for the replies. There are at least two programs still being supported and developed that claim to manage SSD caching in Windows - PrimoCache and VeloSSD. So there are things that seem to be what I'm looking for, but I'm having trouble finding what I'd consider reliable reviews of recent versions of either.

Well, they both have trial versions. So I could give them a go and see what happens. Worst case scenario is that I'd have to restore from backup.

 

[David Bisset]

I'll clarify the question, since the replies so far have been about using an SSD as a manually managed cache, which I said I don't want to do, or buying a SSD with a large enough capacity to completely replace my HDD, which I ruled out on the basis of cost/benefit.

To paraphrase the question:

Does anyone have any information on a way of using an SSD as a cache for the main HDD and which will work on my existing PC and which doesn't require manually managing the cache? The computer should be doing that, not me. A properly managed ~250 GB SSD would make a lot of difference. Even a ~120 GB would. If it's impossible, please tell me why. It seems like a very obvious thing.

No the replies suggesting use the SSD as an OS drive are not saying use it as a manually managed cache as it's not in any way, shape or form a cache. If you mean you don't want to click to change destination drive to the HDD when installing new stuff then fair enough (though you can just set your default steam location to the HDD, default program files there and leave it at that 95% of the time)

Games on SSD is a small change, windows on SSD is a big one. SSHDs or any software caching option suffer from major issues around caching the wrong thing etc and will give you less benefit as well as costing space due to duplication of data.

 

[DaleTheWhale]

SSD = OS, Games, Some programs
HDD = Rest of the stuff

You don't have to completely replace the HDD with the SSD, use both.
PS: Delete some games, do you really need 400GB of games installed?

Done.

 

[Armageus]

Thanks for the replies. There are at least two programs still being supported and developed that claim to manage SSD caching in Windows - PrimoCache and VeloSSD. So there are things that seem to be what I'm looking for, but I'm having trouble finding what I'd consider reliable reviews of recent versions of either.

VeloSSD I wouldn't buy just out of principle having seen their website (and their benchmarks date back to 2012)

PrimoCache I had heard of when it was called FancyCache, but still wouldn't be bothering with it.

I personally wouldn't want to trust any of my data to these software caching solutions.

Save the money you would spend on these and put it towards a bigger SSD. Whether they work or not isn't the question, there just isn't a need for it (otherwise bigger companies would be all over it).

 

[Cromulent]

I use a lot of hard drive space due to recording videos for YouTube (each video can easily eat up 100GBs of space) so I have a 256GB SSD for Windows / Apps / Games and a 2TB hard drive for recording videos to. Very easy to manage. I basically install everything to the C drive and keep the D drive for videos and other files that I want to keep. I do have to occasionally uninstall a game to fit a new one in but that is easy enough. I mean how many games do you need installed at any one time anyway? I have about 5 installed at once and that is more than enough.

Once I've finished with the files on the D drive I archive them to a 4TB NAS on my network where they stay unless I need them again.