SSD Caching (Intel RST) Benchmarks

ghost.florian · 28 Jan 2015 at 16:11

I have recently come into the possession of a Patriot 60GB SSD from a friend. Since I don't have any immediate use for it, I was going to put it to work caching my 1TB Hitachi hard drive using Intel RST.

My question is: can anyone tell me/point me to some performance numbers I would expect to see from this solution ? Most of the information I can find on the web is old, using old platforms (Z68) and old/slow drives.

Maybe someone here has a similar setup, and can share some info.

Thanks!

wazza300 · 28 Jan 2015 at 16:17

its as fast as the ssd read/write figures as its reading and writing to and from the most used data stored on the ssd from the 1tb hdd

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18581269

first you need to do a reg hack to enable raid 0 without re installing windows,then wipe the ssd so that its unformatted/raw data and then setup caching with irst software

ghost.florian · 28 Jan 2015 at 16:27

Thanks for the link. The thing is, I already have Windows installed on my Sandisk Extreme SSD, which is my main boot drive. Do I still need to enable RAID 0 to get the same performance, if I am just using the 1TB HDD as normal storage ?

I was looking more for read/write numbers or game loading times, not necessarily boot times, but it's very helpful indeed !

wazza300 · 28 Jan 2015 at 16:30

yh read write will still be the same as the ssd read/write specs and games load just as fast

its only 1 or 2 seconds slower at bootingup vs having the os on the ssd

you need to either do a reg hack to enable raid 0 then clone the ssd/os to the hdd and wipe the ssd or set to raid 0 in bios and format the ssd/do a clean windows install on the hdd and then setup caching

ive used it for nearly a year and its just as quick as using the os/games directly on the ssd

(edit you have to enable raid 0 to use caching) but the problem is you cant set to raid 0 after installing windows,you have to set it before windows install or it will blue screen,but google on how to enable raid 0 after windows install and you can get around reinstalling if you want to

you might be able to keep the os on your ssd and use the 60gb ssd to cache the 1tb hdd,idk if it works as ive never tried that,usually the os has to be on the hdd you want to accelerate/cache

ghost.florian · 28 Jan 2015 at 16:37

wazza300 said:
you might be able to keep the os on your ssd and use the 60gb ssd to cache the 1tb hdd,idk if it works as ive never tried that,usually the os has to be on the hdd you want to accelerate/cache

This is what I am trying to do - I've read that it should work. I will give it a go when I have some spare time and see if it works - will post some benchmarks too.

wazza300 · 28 Jan 2015 at 16:39

either way you still need to set to raid in the bios and do a reg hack to save you having to re install windows

once you've done that add in the new 60gb ssd unallocated/raw format and try to set it up in rst software within windows

Sylver123 · 1 Feb 2015 at 00:57

You can also use the tool below to prepare your windows install for RAID mode instead of using a reg hack.

After using this tool, your windows should boot just fine in RAID mode.

http://mike.geek-republic.com/software/raidfix/

I am not sure though if that tool works with windows 8 and above.

It definitely works with windows 7 because I used it myself to convert my install to RAID.