SSD storage accelerators from Intel and Corsair face off

[A Guy]

SSD cache drives have emerged as a means of addressing this gap. They are small, typically containing between 20-60GB of NAND flash and are paired with a standard hard drive. Once installed, drivers monitor which applications and files are accessed most often, then cache those files on the SSD. It can take the software 1-2 runs to start caching data, but once this process is complete, future access and boot times are significantly enhanced.

Source

A Guy

 

[smarteyeball]

It's a great compromise idea for those who regularly access apps on mechanical drives.

 

[Wishmaster]

I understand how this can help with say, a mechanical drive that contains the OS, but what about a game drive.

For example, I have a SSD for my OS/Apps. But, I also have a mechanical drive thats dedicated to Steam, where the large majority of games are. Im guessing in that scenario the difference would be little to none. Especially considering that with many games, a SSD doesn't make a huge difference, and with others just the load time increses a bit.

 

[smiths22]

but lol this technology has more than 1 year out. Intel rapid response technology. BTW im using a corsair one as a cache...mmmmm not reliable.

 

[smarteyeball]

For example, I have a SSD for my OS/Apps. But, I also have a mechanical drive thats dedicated to Steam, where the large majority of games are. Im guessing in that scenario the difference would be little to none. Especially considering that with many games, a SSD doesn't make a huge difference, and with others just the load time increses a bit.

I haven't tested it so I can't say for sure, but I suspect if you play games x,y,z regularly and frequently enough for the cache to go 'ah ha' I'll cache that, you might me see some of those load time improvements etc.

I thought about adding a cache drive, but since most of my apps/games are on either SSD or RAID 0, I doubt I'd notice any difference.

 

[x BlueRobot]

It's a good idea

 

[smarteyeball]

It is if you have a lot of frequently used apps that are primarily on the mechanical drive.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Didn't Seagate do this at least a year ago?

 

[A Guy]

Do you mean the Momentus Hybrid Drive? It was very similar, but I believe had much less NAND. A Guy

 

[lehnerus2000]

I'm not sure of the name.
I think that it had a tiny amount of Flash (4GB?).

 

[NoN]

Sorry to dig this thread out...

I was wondering about caching, that is what i'm using actually with Intel Smart Response and with a SSD 60Gb & a 500Gb spinning hard drive.

I've used the Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox setting to optimize the Superfecht and so on for optimizing. Unallocated the necessary space for Caching on the SSD.

I did set up the Raid 0 and accelerate the Hard Drive with the SSD through IRST.

All went fine and all is fine. Both works like a champ, all bars are green!! The Apps and Boot are just so fast than before.

My main concern is about crashing....It'll just doesn't make it if the OS went to failed.

I'll not be able Start-up repair,
I'll not be able Repair install,
I'll not be able to use Diskpart,
I'll not be able to Reset passwords
I'll not be able to Restore points
and so on....in a normal way. (Is this made on purpose discouraging data thieves?)

I mean the commands does works, but doesn't repair anything as the Hard drive is set to Raid and therefore not entirely visible.

If i have to service the computer, i will have to unaccelerated the Drive before in IRST and the spinning drive will be again visible to be serviced.


I know my next setup will be on a entire SSD if i encounter too much troubleshooting with Caching. As for now it does suits me well and i'm aware of the risk.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I'll not be able Start-up repair,
I'll not be able Repair install,
I'll not be able to use Diskpart,
I'll not be able to Reset passwords
I'll not be able to Restore points

As far as I know it's caching not really raid-0! All data is on spinning disk. Only most frequent used blocks are on SSD also. When booting the system bootmgr and bootmenu can be found WITHOUT a special driver. It loads \Windows\system32\winload.exe and can also be found without a driver. Also the registry. All files can be found!
startup repair, upgrade install and password resets should work, why not? I didn't test it but can you explain?

 

[NoN]

Yes, Caching is not a real Raid 0 but you still have to set on Raid. Disks appears to be SCSI interface under the Sata drivers iastor.sys.

What i'm trying to explain is that everything is loading fine, but if you try to load the repair console at boot you'll see no OS indicated, therefore you be unable to really repair a Start-up or different command tasks will not entirely finish.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Yes, Caching is not a real Raid 0 but you still have to set on Raid. Disks appears to be SCSI interface under the Sata drivers iastor.sys.

What i'm trying to explain is that everything is loading fine, but if you try to load the repair console at boot you'll see no OS indicated, therefore you be unable to really repair a Start-up or different command tasks will not entirely finish.

Very strange if that's real.

If it can't find an win7 OS using its routines, then startup repair can't find it either. And with no win7 selected "system restore" doesn't work as well.

recovery environment (from win7 repair cd or installation disk):
-command prompt works? Can it see win7 partition and all its files?
-bootrec/fixmbr and bootrec/fixboot work?

I read somewhere someone installed win8 after win7 (dual boot) succesfully, when caching to ssd was already enabled. I conclude win8 install dvd recognized the unallocated partition and installed there.

 

[NoN]

Yes, Caching is not a real Raid 0 but you still have to set on Raid. Disks appears to be SCSI interface under the Sata drivers iastor.sys.

What i'm trying to explain is that everything is loading fine, but if you try to load the repair console at boot you'll see no OS indicated, therefore you be unable to really repair a Start-up or different command tasks will not entirely finish.

Very strange if that's real.

If it can't find an win7 OS using its routines, then startup repair can't find it either. And with no win7 selected "system restore" doesn't work as well.

recovery environment (from win7 repair cd or installation disk):
-command prompt works? Can it see win7 partition and all its files?
-bootrec/fixmbr and bootrec/fixboot work?

I read somewhere someone installed win8 after win7 (dual boot) succesfully, when caching to ssd was already enabled. I conclude win8 install dvd recognized the unallocated partition and installed there.

I don't find it strange.

After enable the Caching through IRST you can see in the Device Manager that the Spinning Drive (System) had been renamed. So, it does not appear as a normal disk and is shadowed. When you unaccelerate the Caching it comes again normal and the Caching one is shadowed.

As for Windows 8 install if there's a disk that is unallocated it should be fine to install on it as there's no reason the boot doesn't see it. I could be wrong & i didn't make any Windows 8 install.

Command prompt works but seems displaying only the infos it could be given to it. Looks the Cached Disk/Accelerate Disk does not appear in a correct way.

 

[Kaktussoft]

You can even install win8 to an empty partition on an "accelerated" physical disk. A friend told me he did it.

Most important to me to understand what happens:

• Can you see the files from within recovery environment->command prompt?
• Can you read them? (for example copy 1 file)?

If windows boot it:

• reads MBR
• reads volume boot sector of active partition
• reads/executes bootmgr
• reads \boot\bcd (bootmenu)
• reads/executes \Windows\system32\winload.exe

All goes fine otherwise you can't boot win7 at all. So it CAN access those files without special drivers loaded yet.

I believe you, but find it very strange. So accelerated disk can only be operated as expected if "special intel storage driver" has been loaded? So not in winpe, linux etc?

 

[NoN]

I've start my new build since 13 days only...I haven't test all already, i'm discovery Caching and it's tricks.

I haven't been further yet in investigations and this have to be continued, but not straight away now.

I'll keep you in touch along me discovering that thing!

 

[Kaktussoft]

I've start my new build since 13 days only...I haven't test all already, i'm discovery Caching and it's tricks.

I haven't been further yet in investigations and this have to be continued, but not straight away now.

I'll keep you in touch along me discovering that thing!

I'm very curious about the way it works and behaves. Please inform me later

 

[NoN]

I've start my new build since 13 days only...I haven't test all already, i'm discovery Caching and it's tricks.

I haven't been further yet in investigations and this have to be continued, but not straight away now.

I'll keep you in touch along me discovering that thing!

I'm very curious about the way it works and behaves. Please inform me later

Oh, i forgot to say SFC /SCANNOW, system file checker is one of the command that is working fine. Haven't tried yet F8 for entering the Safe Mode....

 

[Kaktussoft]

I've start my new build since 13 days only...I haven't test all already, i'm discovery Caching and it's tricks.

I haven't been further yet in investigations and this have to be continued, but not straight away now.

I'll keep you in touch along me discovering that thing!

I'm very curious about the way it works and behaves. Please inform me later

Oh, i forgot to say SFC /SCANNOW, system file checker is one of the command that is working fine. Haven't tried yet F8 for entering the Safe Mode....

SFC /SCANNOW : That scans the current version of win7. So the mini win7 in ramdisk! So not the win7 version on harddisk.

Safe mode works?
"repair my computer" from F8-menu starts?