Smart Response Technology and using 2 SSD's.

[Deleted]

Is it unnecessary to go for 2 SSD's, one to actually run the OS and games and the other one to just have in order to benefit from the Smart Response Technology (given that one has a Z68 board ofcourse). Or can I use a single one where I put my OS and games on there and also having the Smart Response Technology on it?

If one would use the last option, is there not going to be any conflict of any kind (performance, security, anything else?) as this technology creates the files it caches on both the SSD and the HDD. And if there would be such conflicts (or anything else that could hinder the performance), would it not be better to go the first option?

Thank you in advance.

[Djinni]

Depending on how much space you dedicated to SRT Cache you could easily just use one slightly larger drive.
Personally IF I were to get an SSD i'd just dedicate 64GB of it to SRT Cache and not bother installing anything to it. That way I'm hopefully not wasting any space. (64GB is the cap Intel has set because apparntly in their tests anymore than that is just a waste.)

Much more likely though, I wouldn't bother with an SSD at all and just RAID0 some regular harddrives.

[Mif]

One drive for OS and SRT is doable with a bit of tinkering

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2172381

[Djinni]

One drive for OS and SRT is doable with a bit of tinkering

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2172381

It depends on the size of the SSD as to weather that's worth doing or not, if its less than 64GB I wouldn't bother with putting the OS on it, since the parts of the OS you actually use will most likely be cached after your second reboot.

[sizzlinsauce]

If you can afford it. at this time you pay like $2 per GB on SSD's so its basically $240 for a 120gb, $480 for 240gb etc etc.

[Mif]

It depends on the size of the SSD as to weather that's worth doing or not, if its less than 64GB I wouldn't bother with putting the OS on it, since the parts of the OS you actually use will most likely be cached after your second reboot.

Agreed. Losing 1/3 of your capacity on a 64gb boot drive isn't worth it. You'll constantly be having low disk space issues.
On a 128gb drive, you'll have more than enough room for both.

[Deleted]

I was thinking about actually going with 2 SSD's. One to put my OS and games on and the other one (64GB one or close to that) to enable SRT.
Does anything have to be in a RAID configuration or any specific stuff?

Or should I just listen to the tips and let go of going with 2 SSD's?

Thank you.

[Deleted]

SRT just doesn't have the reliability or speed of a single managed SSD, it just seems silly to get a second SSD solely for SRT - its not at all what the tech was designed for.

Keep in mind SRT only accelerates frequently loaded files and programs. And if you're frequently loading them, you're pretty much better off having it sitting directly on the SSD itself, because that'll make a MUCH greater difference in loading speeds.

SRT was primarely designed to be used with 20gb-40gb units.

[Simca]

SRT just doesn't have the reliability or speed of a single managed SSD, it just seems silly to get a second SSD solely for SRT - its not at all what the tech was designed for.

Keep in mind SRT only accelerates frequently loaded files and programs. And if you're frequently loading them, you're pretty much better off having it sitting directly on the SSD itself, because that'll make a MUCH greater difference in loading speeds.

SRT was primarely designed to be used with 20gb-40gb units.

He probably just has a lot of games - all my games wouldn't fit on a 120 GB SSD. Games take up like 6-10 GB now... 120 GB goes by extremely fast.

[Deleted]

But would it be a good thing to buy for example a Intel Larsen Creek 311 Series 20GB one just to enhance the HDD with SRT and then have another SSD of any size to put the OS and games, certain stuff on it.

Thanks.

[Deleted]

120 GB goes by extremely fast.

I've got two separate systems that both currently are below 120gb used on their respective SSDs. Some basic management and you can get very far.

SRT won't help if he 'has a lot of games', because most of those games won't end up being cached.

[BicycleMafioso]

If you can afford it. at this time you pay like $2 per GB on SSD's so its basically $240 for a 120gb, $480 for 240gb etc etc.

WHAT? Buy them. Buy them now. D:

I've got two separate systems that both currently are below 120gb used on their respective SSDs. Some basic management and you can get very far.

SRT won't help if he 'has a lot of games', because most of those games won't end up being cached.

I have two separate systems, and I struggle, because I can never remember what files are safe to remove. D:
Esp on this laptop, it's annoying as it's my only form of in-case storage, although it's 160GB (149GiB) in difference to my desktop whom has 60GB.

[Deleted]

Looking at currency/gb ratio it certainly isn't worth investing in two SSD's for SRT. SRT's value in my eyes comes from two main camps. Those who already own a small capacity SSD or those who can grab their hands on a very cheap one, which would most likely be a small capacity one. I personally fall in neither camp.

One single large SSD would make the most sense and I still consider them to be a luxury item, something which I will not invest in for a long time to come.

[Djinni]

But would it be a good thing to buy for example a Intel Larsen Creek 311 Series 20GB one just to enhance the HDD with SRT and then have another SSD of any size to put the OS and games, certain stuff on it.

Thanks.

I hate to say it, but a 20gb drive would be a pure waste of money for anyone not following a very strict 2 or 3 program routine, as if you opened a different program more than once, whatever was in the cache would be "ejected" to make way for the new program.

[Deleted]

I hate to say it, but a 20gb drive would be a pure waste of money for anyone not following a very strict 2 or 3 program routine, as if you opened a different program more than once, whatever was in the cache would be "ejected" to make way for the new program.

Thats not 'quite' how the cache works. It doesn't cache complete programs, only specific segments; thus small sizes work just fine. With larger units, the direct SSD transfer yields significantly superior performance benefits in a much more controlled manner.

[Djinni]

Thats not 'quite' how the cache works. It doesn't cache complete programs, only specific segments; thus small sizes work just fine. With larger units, the direct SSD transfer yields significantly superior performance benefits in a much more controlled manner.

Initially it's very easy to get excited about Intel's SRT. If you only run a handful of applications, you'll likely get performance similar to that of a standalone SSD without all of the cost and size limitations. Unfortunately, at least when paired with Intel's SSD 311, it doesn't take much to kick some of that data out of the cache.
To put eviction to the test, I ran through three games—Portal 2, Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft—then I installed the entire Adobe CS5.5 Master Collection, ran five of its applications and tried running Starcraft 2 again. All of Starcraft 2's data had been evicted from the SSD cache resulting in HDD-like performance:

Starcraft 2 Level Loading—Seagate Barracuda 3TB (Maximize Cache)
	Load Time	Load Time After App Install/Launch
Game Launch	9.7 seconds	17.4 seconds
Level Load	15.0 seconds	23.3 seconds

I thought that may have been a bit excessive so I tried another test. This time I used the machine a bit more, browsed the web, did some file copies and scanned for viruses but I didn't install any new applications. Instead I launched five Adobe applications and then ran through all of our game loading tests. The result was a mixed bag with some games clearly being evicted from the cache and others not being touched at all:

Game Load Comparison
Intel SSD 311 20GB Cache	Portal 2 (Game Launch)	Portal 2 (Level Load)	Starcraft 2 (Game Launch)	Starcraft 2 (Level Load)	World of Warcraft (Game Launch)	World of Warcraft (Level Load)
Load Time	9.9 seconds	15.1 seconds	9.7 seconds	15.0 seconds	4.5 seconds	5.8 seconds
Load Time After Use	12.1 seconds	15.1 seconds	10.1 seconds	15.3 seconds	3.6 seconds	14.0 seconds

Even boot time was affected. For the most part performance didn't fall back down to HDD levels, but it wasn't as snappy as before when I was only running games.

Boot Time—Seagate Barracuda 3TB (Maximize Cache)
	Time
Boot Time	32.6 seconds
Boot Time After Use	37.3 seconds
Boot Time Without Cache	55.5 seconds

Although Intel felt that 20GB was the ideal size to balance price/performance and while SRT is supposed to filter out some IO operations from being cached, it's clear that if you frequently use ~10 applications that you will evict useful data from your cache on a 20GB SSD 311. For lighter usage models with only a few frequently used applications, a 20GB cache should be just fine.

Above quote from:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/5



(Not saying your wrong, and i'm probably being a little conservative with a 2 or 3 program routine, but I hope it makes to make my point)

[Deleted]

But I hope it makes to make my point)

Well, no. Since the article confirms the point I'm making. With larger units, you're better off not using it as a cache.

You'll still get better overall performance by grabbing a large (80-160GB+) SSD, putting your OS + applications on it, and manually moving all of your large media files to a separate hard drive. What SRT does offer however is a stepping stone to a full blown SSD + HDD setup and a solution that doesn't require end user management. You don't get the same performance as a large dedicated SSD, but you can turn any hard drive into a much higher performing storage device. Paired with a 20GB SLC SSD cache, I could turn a 4-year-old 1TB hard drive into something that was 41% faster than a VelociRaptor.