SSD Caching HDD

ecksmen · 28 Sep 2011 at 19:18

So, OCZ are releasing an SSD purposely designed and bundled with software to act as a cache for a regular HDD.

(http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_synapse_cache_series_ssds_released)

My question is, does anyone know of any method of doing this with 3rd party apps, or windows tweaks and a regular SSD?

I'm not fussed about people debating lifespans, is it worth it blah blah blah.

I want to try a proof of concept, if it means buying a OCZ Synapse then so be it ( I am not interested in a prebuilt hybrid solution).

Does OCuK know when they will get stock of the above and the rough price?

Yellowbeard · 29 Sep 2011 at 06:38

Marvell 9130 controllers and Intel Z68 chipset based boards do this with no extra software needed.

varkanoid · 29 Sep 2011 at 14:48

actually it needs Intel Smart Response software installing.

ecat · 29 Sep 2011 at 15:35

... and the OCZ supplied software is reported to perform better than the Intel sw. ymmv

FancyCache can cache directly to an existing SSD so may give you something to play with. A potential down side of FC is the usage of system memory for level 1 caching, not a problem for 8GB 64bit systems, but something to remember when using 32bit systems.

You could forgo the SSD and cache directly to RAM to see how much difference a very fast cache would make. Again FancyCache, also SuperCache supports RAM caching, the former can use the hidden memory on 32 bit systems, the latter can use memory above 4GB on 32bit systems, so everyone can join in

NB. MAKE a BACKUP before messing around. Enabling delayed writes in SuperCache ate my HD so you have been warned!

Edit:
Forgot to mention that neither of the above apps do anything at boot up. And while I'm here, both apps can achieve some amazing benchmark numbers, but remember to run some real world (TM) tests... you may be surprised at how far removed the benchmarks are from the real world!

ecksmen · 29 Sep 2011 at 16:52

ecat said:
... and the OCZ supplied software is reported to perform better than the Intel sw. ymmv

FancyCache can cache directly to an existing SSD so may give you something to play with. A potential down side of FC is the usage of system memory for level 1 caching, not a problem for 8GB 64bit systems, but something to remember when using 32bit systems.

You could forgo the SSD and cache directly to RAM to see how much difference a very fast cache would make. Again FancyCache, also SuperCache supports RAM caching, the former can use the hidden memory on 32 bit systems, the latter can use memory above 4GB on 32bit systems, so everyone can join in

NB. MAKE a BACKUP before messing around. Enabling delayed writes in SuperCache ate my HD so you have been warned!

Edit:
Forgot to mention that neither of the above apps do anything at boot up. And while I'm here, both apps can achieve some amazing benchmark numbers, but remember to run some real world (TM) tests... you may be surprised at how far removed the benchmarks are from the real world!

I'm not concerned about boot times; this is for my test lab mainly.

I use a series of large HDD that store files (I'm talking rarely if at all accessed) and more importantly frequently accessed VMs.

What I would like is that the VMs and a few of the files that do get used often run out of cache giving "speed" and then less used files run off the Sata again I guess freeing up HDD IO for other operations but I don't want to just assign a whole SSD to just VMs when perhaps only small chunks of it are used frequently (vmdks will be split into chunks allowing them to "float".).

I'll take a look at these programs thanks!

Admetos · 29 Sep 2011 at 17:08

Windows 7 Readyboost will cache frequent HDD requests, I use Readyboost on Crucial M4 SSD's. Does not help boot times (but does if you hibernate), but makes machine more responsive once everything has loaded up and the readyboost has started to build.

Yellowbeard · 29 Sep 2011 at 19:52

Yellowbeard said:
Marvell 9130 controllers and Intel Z68 chipset based boards do this with no extra software needed.

varkanoid said:
actually it needs Intel Smart Response software installing.

No, that's not correct. Intel's RST is certainly not going to use a Marvell controller for SSD caching. The Marvell controller will use its own driver and software.

My point was that if you buy a board with these controllers, their own respective softwares/drivers do this for you. There is no need of a third party software to enact SSD caching.

Of course, the advantage of using an SSD that comes with SSD caching software is that you can use it on an existing board if you don't wish to change MOBOs to one with Intel's Z68 or the Marvell 9130 controller.