The partition is at the OS level. The caching happens at the drive and sector level. So your SSD would cache the whole drive - or rather whichever bits of the drive you use most. If most of your access is from the C: drive, then thats what will end up in the cache.
SSD Caching vs Partitions
- Thread starter eddiew
- Start date
Yes. Its a bit of a faff to get it working (activating the caching for the first time zaps the other contents on the SSD) but its doable.
Can't remember who but someone on this forum managed to partition his SSD into two, one for OS and the other for HDD cache. So getting the full SSD speed when booting and SSD cache for other things such as programs and personal files.
EDIT: Found it! http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=19834039&postcount=8
EDIT: Found it! http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=19834039&postcount=8
I would be completely fine with this happening, if only I could find the bit of the SRT documentation that says that is the behaviour you get.
Last thing I want is to discover it caches C: only: boot times are the last of my concerns. Having my many gigs of photoshop files, a couple of hefty games, and launching basic apps accellerated is much more interesting
This thread interests me.
I currently use my 80GB SSD as an OS drive, and for applications, 3DS max, adobe master collection, office etc.
And i have all my steam games on a F3 1TB drive, so they don't really see the SSD benefit.
Tempted to re-install windows, withstand longer boot times but increase all cache loading times (i assume this will help commonly played games too?).
At least that's my understanding anyway..? can anyone confirm this?
I currently use my 80GB SSD as an OS drive, and for applications, 3DS max, adobe master collection, office etc.
And i have all my steam games on a F3 1TB drive, so they don't really see the SSD benefit.
Tempted to re-install windows, withstand longer boot times but increase all cache loading times (i assume this will help commonly played games too?).
At least that's my understanding anyway..? can anyone confirm this?
Another old SRT review(Intel 311 Larson Creek 20GB) here with benchmarks.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1587/5/ .
Obviously if you use 60-64GB SSD as cache drive it will be able to cache more of your frequently used programs,this alone is obviously better then a small 20GB SSD cache drive.
Do note this,
I use my Crucial M4 64GB in enhanced mode as cache drive with my Samsung F3 1TB mechanical hard drive,I get very nice performance gains with my Crucial M4 SSD cache drive(2.7x faster in reading then the Intel reviewed above )ie M4 Specs Sequential Read (SATA 6Gb/s) - 550MB/sec with firmware 0009 /Sequential Write 110MB/sec with firmware 0009).
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1587/5/ .
Obviously if you use 60-64GB SSD as cache drive it will be able to cache more of your frequently used programs,this alone is obviously better then a small 20GB SSD cache drive.
Do note this,
I use my Crucial M4 64GB in enhanced mode as cache drive with my Samsung F3 1TB mechanical hard drive,I get very nice performance gains with my Crucial M4 SSD cache drive(2.7x faster in reading then the Intel reviewed above )ie M4 Specs Sequential Read (SATA 6Gb/s) - 550MB/sec with firmware 0009 /Sequential Write 110MB/sec with firmware 0009).
Last edited:
Permabanned
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
Yes, your games will most certainly benefit from SRT....loading times will be slashed but as you say your OS will be a little slower.
Of course a SSD only system will be faster but my opinion is.. anything below 512gb just isn't big enough for a primary drive and accelerating a large machanical hdd is in my opinion the best way to go for small SSDs. You really do kill two birds with one stone and i'm sure people who havn't yet tried SRT will be very pleasantly suprised.
Some people will still prefere to use their small SSDs for the OS, it is just a matter of what is more important to you.
Oh! and steam will load much quicker too.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
You are absolutetly right Sir, as you only play a couple of games at a time and find 128GB more than enough, who can argue with that? If you're happy then why change and your two or three games will of course be quicker, so enjoy.
Soldato
- Joined
- 5 Feb 2009
- Posts
- 3,962
Ok, this is now swaying me towards getting a 64GB M4 for a cache drive over a 128GB for an OS drive.
I'm wondering about enhanced SRT settings, though. It seems to give great speeds, but I thought I read something about security of data in that saves are written to the cache rather than the mechanical HDD first? I'd really want my work to be saved to my mechanical HDD rather than kept in a volatile cache and it does seem there's more of a risk of data loss this way.
Is that right? Is there any way to force saving from cache to HDD? Or am I now worrying about nothing?
I'm wondering about enhanced SRT settings, though. It seems to give great speeds, but I thought I read something about security of data in that saves are written to the cache rather than the mechanical HDD first? I'd really want my work to be saved to my mechanical HDD rather than kept in a volatile cache and it does seem there's more of a risk of data loss this way.
Is that right? Is there any way to force saving from cache to HDD? Or am I now worrying about nothing?
I'm not too sure about this you need a 500gb SSD for your primary hard drive non-sense.
Win7, a browser, office and steam only takes up ~50gb. If you're cunning you just leave the game you're actively playing on the SSD and move all your other steam games onto a mechanical HHD with symbolic links. My steam directory is around 120gb but most of it run off a mech drive which really doesn't matter for single player games I rarely play.
Win7, a browser, office and steam only takes up ~50gb. If you're cunning you just leave the game you're actively playing on the SSD and move all your other steam games onto a mechanical HHD with symbolic links. My steam directory is around 120gb but most of it run off a mech drive which really doesn't matter for single player games I rarely play.
The Intel RST software lets you choose Write-thru or Write-back caching. Just choose the safer option - it tells you which.
I had the build where my OS was on the SSD in one partition and SSD caching of my Raid5 in a 2nd partition for a while, but I was having issues with my drive (OCZ Vertex3). When it worked it was impressive. AFAIK the M4 doesnt have the issues my drive did, so go for it.
You need to be able to copy/clone partitions around and be comfortable with messing with your boot order etc. to get it done.
Oh and don't do loads of benchmarks on a HD with SSD acceleration - all you end up doing is caching a bunch of sectors which the benchmarks hit - which is naff all use in real life, you want your actually useful stuff in the cache.
I had the build where my OS was on the SSD in one partition and SSD caching of my Raid5 in a 2nd partition for a while, but I was having issues with my drive (OCZ Vertex3). When it worked it was impressive. AFAIK the M4 doesnt have the issues my drive did, so go for it.
You need to be able to copy/clone partitions around and be comfortable with messing with your boot order etc. to get it done.
Oh and don't do loads of benchmarks on a HD with SSD acceleration - all you end up doing is caching a bunch of sectors which the benchmarks hit - which is naff all use in real life, you want your actually useful stuff in the cache.
Last edited:
Excellent find, thanks! I get the feeling you can follow that process without needing a spare HDD, instead making a smaller partition for the temporary install of Windows and removing that partition once SRT is set up.
Question: What RAID setting do you need for SRT? RAID 1? I'm not familiar with RAID settings other than RAID 0 and RAID 1.
lrlcr said:
Yes, you're absolutely right, I reckon 20GB is probably enough to squeeze Windows 7 in (maybe less). spankingtexan was merely expressing his opinion that less than 512GB would be too small as a primary drive as a personal preference.
You dont. Just set your motherboard to RAID in the bios, and then use the Intel RST software to setup up the acceleration partition.
I will also add make sure you install the Intel chipset drivers first before installing the SRT driver/software if you are doing this on a fresh install of OS.
I installed SRT driver/software last once I had all normal drivers/ Windows updates done and after a few reboots to make sure everything was fine.