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SSD caching good?

G

grandpatzer

Gawd
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
641
I might get a z68 system and have a 40gb intel x-25v lying around.

It's supposed to have good 4kb read/writes but other MB/s are a bit "low" compared to modern SSD's.

According this article there is some major load time improvement in games with a F40 and a 3tb storage harddrive.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4337/z68-ssd-caching-with-corsairs-f40-sandforce-ssd/5

the intel disk that I have compared to f40 better 4kb but rest is good amount less.
 
For a small drive like that, it is probably worth trying - not a whole lot else good to use a 40 Gb drive for, and it'll definitely help the stuff that gets cached.
 
I didn't understand what your exact question or concern was, but I'll try to shed some light on your situation.

The write performance depends on your settings. You can either force the HDD to write as the files are saved, or you can set the SSD to register writes, then let the HDD slowly catch up. If you do the latter, you should have a UPS so that the HDD does not abruptly lose power.

4KB is probably the most important part of an SSD. While the F40 is faster on paper, the real world difference is probably a split second. If your question is whether or not you should upgrade, it really depends on what you expect, and I'm not quite sure.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/2
 
I was wondering this too. If the SSD is registering the writes, would a UPS really be that important considering that an SSD is non volatile? Is there not some type of journal (on the SSD) that would keep track of what is on it and be able to commit the write to the HDD once power was restored?
I know there's a chance of the SSD kicking the bucket at random, and this could cause corruption if there were uncommitted blocks on it, but that would happen regardless of having a UPS, and I'm thinking that's what the setting is there to protect against. Basically reducing the failure point down to only the HDD instead of either it or the SSD being able to cause total failure.

Reason I bring it up is because there is probably a major performance benefit to using the SSD as a writethrough cache, and I don't how it should be any less reliable than a RAID0 of 2 drives, probably a little more so because the SSD dropping out should only cause a problem if there were writes pending.

Just looking for confirmation that a power failure will in fact cause corruption, as I don't see why it should.
 
I was wondering this too. If the SSD is registering the writes, would a UPS really be that important considering that an SSD is non volatile?
Click to expand...

That is the main point of having a SSD instead of just a ram cache. The SSD cache should not corrupt or lose data if the system reboots or you lose power.

Is there not some type of journal (on the SSD) that would keep track of what is on it and be able to commit the write to the HDD once power was restored?
Click to expand...

This is basically how the linux version of SSD caching hard drives works.

https://github.com/facebook/flashcache/blob/master/doc/flashcache-doc.txt
 
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Your signature shows Win7 on a SSD. Unless Intel has changed their SRT (caching) software, you can't do caching unless the OS is on a hard drive. SRT was originally built to aid systems when SSDs were very expensive, small, and HDDs were the standard.

The Z68 is a very nice setup but don't buy it with caching in mind if you have a reasonable SSD (60G). Install the OS on the SSD and move on. If the SSD is big enough, put your apps on it too.
 
I'm not sure I agree with the above poster. I setup the SSD caching via Z68 on my son's box, and it works great. I used the enhanced setup instead of the performance one, so it essentially acts as a read cache, which is fine. There are several benefits to doing this, one being that you don't have to manage the SSD space or do anything special for that matter. Just install the OS on your spinning drive, when you have it the way you want it, install the SSD and turn on the raid caching SRT stuffs. It works brilliant here. Everything on his system benefits from the cache, unlike mine which is dedicated to the OS and some apps. He is a big gamer and his system loads levels much faster than mine even...
 
ob1 said:
I'm not sure I agree with the above poster. I setup the SSD caching via Z68 on my son's box, and it works great. I used the enhanced setup instead of the performance one, so it essentially acts as a read cache, which is fine. There are several benefits to doing this, one being that you don't have to manage the SSD space or do anything special for that matter. Just install the OS on your spinning drive, when you have it the way you want it, install the SSD and turn on the raid caching SRT stuffs. It works brilliant here. Everything on his system benefits from the cache, unlike mine which is dedicated to the OS and some apps. He is a big gamer and his system loads levels much faster than mine even...
Click to expand...

If the "spinning drive" is a hard drive, and I would assume it is, than caching will work fine. I only said caching won't work if the OS were on a SSD.
 
deeppow said:
If the "spinning drive" is a hard drive, and I would assume it is, than caching will work fine. I only said caching won't work if the OS were on a SSD.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit confused, not even sure how it's possible to cache a 3tb harddrive with a 40gb harddrive :eek:

My OS and games are on a 120gb F120 SSD.

But I also have a samsung 5400rpm 2tb hd204ui that also has games, some games load times takes some time and maybe I could half load time having the intel x-25v as cacing?
 
Maybe I mistunderstood the OP. You have an SSD as your boot drive, and a spinning HD, and want to get a Z68 and use a 40GB as cache? If thats the question, then I would say no, just keep using your existing SSD. Caching an existing SSD is not optimal and I'm not even sure its supported. If you just had an HDD and were adding a 40GB SSD for cache, then it would make a world of difference. Just because an SSD has better benchmark results doesn't necessarily mean you will notice this in the real world.
 
grandpatzer said:
I'm a bit confused, not even sure how it's possible to cache a 3tb harddrive with a 40gb harddrive :eek:

My OS and games are on a 120gb F120 SSD.

But I also have a samsung 5400rpm 2tb hd204ui that also has games, some games load times takes some time and maybe I could half load time having the intel x-25v as cacing?
Click to expand...

It doesn't cache the whole drive, obviously, it just invisibly moves the most commonly used files (determined by some algorithm it uses) to the SSD, and then loads them from there instead of the spinning disk.
 
I think the OP wants to use caching on a secondary hard drive dedicated to games, while still using his other SSD for the OS.

That's not possible with Intel's technology.
 
Aesma said:
I think the OP wants to use caching on a secondary hard drive dedicated to games, while still using his other SSD for the OS.

That's not possible with Intel's technology.
Click to expand...

I have 3 harddrives right now:

1. 120gb ssd with Windows 7 and games.
2. HD204UI 2tb 5400rpm with games.

3. 40gb SSD I want to use to decrease the load times on the 2tb drive in games using 40gb SSD?
 
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OK, I understand now, apologies all around for the misunderstanding.

To your question though, I don't think its possible either. I think what you want is for your games drive to be faster or cached. I don't think the Z68 will help. If it doesn't, you could always symlink or just put a game on that small SSD. Otherwise, just get a faster big drive when they come down in price...
 
Aesma said:
Or maybe a third party caching software could help.
Click to expand...

possible, seems I'm better of having OS on F120 40gb partition, games on 80gb f120 partition and use the 40gb intel for games instead of caching.

put old games on 2tb that don't have long load times.
 
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