spare SSD - z77 cache or more SSD storage?

[hardware_failure]

I upgraded from a c300 SSD 128GB to a 250GB samsung 840 pro.

I was (and still am) running alot off of 2x 2TB samsung hd204ui (the good non-seagate ones) mostly because I got fed up with/lazy about managing 128GB.

If I plan to still run some stuff from the 2TB spinners, would it be worth it to use the old crucial SSD as a cache drive, or would most people just use it as more raw SSD storage?

Thanks.

 

[GotNoRice]

You could use the old SSD, but I would just create a 64GB partition on the 256GB drive and use that for cache instead, and the rest directly for Data.

Most people vastly underestimate just how effective Intel SSD caching actually is.

 

[hardware_failure]

I didnt know you could use a volume vs having to dedicate a whole drive. (obviously never used it before)

That would indeed make sense, using a small part of the fastest drive. Even something cached from the crucial SSD would be a little faster. Brilliant!

Thank you very much for the helpful post

 

[[L]imey]

Can you tell me more about ssd caching?

I have a 2nd one, I hadn't heard about caching.

 

[GotNoRice]

This is how SRT (Intel Smart Response Technology aka SSD caching) works:

You access a block of data for the first time from your mechanical Hard Drive, at which point it is also copied into cache (SSD).
The next time you access that same block, it will be accessed from cache instead, at the full speed of your SSD.
As you access additional blocks of data from your mechanical Hard Drive, they will also be copied into cache, and accessed from the cache upon subsequent requests for that block.
This process repeats until your cache is full at which point the oldest blocks in cache are pushed out of cache.

Note that I reference "blocks" because SRT works on the block/hardware level, not the file level or the program level. If you have a 3GB file that you only regularly access a few hundred megabytes of, only the blocks that contain those few hundred megabytes of data are likely be cached (as opposed to the whole file). In this sense SRT can be pretty efficient.

Until the cache actually fills up, it will continue to cache every single block that you access regardless of how frequently you access it. Only when the cache becomes full does anything start to be pushed out of cache, and at that point it will start with the oldest data in cache, not based on frequency of usage. Of course, anything you use on a regular basis is unlikely to become the oldest data in cache as it becomes the newest data in cache again every time you access those blocks.

You can either use an ~18GB partition or a 64GB partition. You can't use the whole drive for drives larger than 64GB, but you are able to use the remaining space to store data on the SSD directly.

 

[fuzchunk]

caching is hard on the drive lots of read writes If you have a old 64tb or less go for it. but i wouldent do it on a more expensive larger drive get a second 128 raid them