SSD cahing non os drive?

[grandpatzer]

I have a Corsair F120 120gb ssd disk and a Crucial C300 64gb ssd disk.

I currently have C300 as OS disk and F120 as gaming disk but 120gb is too little for my games, I'm considering using a 2TB 5400rpm Samsung 204UI as gaming disk, would having 20-64gb of either SSD to cache the 204UI a good idea?

If I can get close to SSD load times for games on the 2TB disk it would be awesome

 

[E4g1e]

You will not achieve anywhere close to the load times of an SSD with that 2TB Samsung HDD. The load times from any HDD (yes, even a 7200 RPM disk) will be much longer than with an SSD simply because HDDs have substantially longer access times than any SSD.

 

[grandpatzer]

Yes but I have read articles where the load times of levels is wery close to ssd performance.

Loading data/levels in different games should have little impact because of acces time on mechanical harddrive.

 

[E4g1e]

Yes but I have read articles where the load times of levels is wery close to ssd performance.

Loading data/levels in different games should have little impact because of acces time on mechanical harddrive.

Also, the load time depends on the sequential transfer speed of the drive. In this case, no HDD delivers even half the sequential transfer speed of most SSDs when it comes to reads.

Then, of course, you also have to factor in the performance of the main system RAM.

 

[cplusplusguru]

Also, the load time depends on the sequential transfer speed of the drive.

I couldn't disagree with that more when it comes to loading game maps. OP, with the SSD cache, you will improve the access times and that's exactly what you need for loading game maps. The caching algorithm works with words (in bytes) using LRU algorithm and write-back cache policy (research that if you have no idea what I'm talking about) therefore access time will be dramatically improved for frequently accessed data and that should give you a nice boost.

Is it a good idea? For sure - but this is something that is much easier tried than asked.

 

[E4g1e]

I couldn't disagree with that more when it comes to loading game maps. OP, with the SSD cache, you will improve the access times and that's exactly what you need for loading game maps. The caching algorithm works with words (in bytes) using LRU algorithm and write-back cache policy (research that if you have no idea what I'm talking about) therefore access time will be dramatically improved for frequently accessed data and that should give you a nice boost.

Fair enough. I had assumed that the HDD is the only type of drive in the system, which is where I got my findings from. I had never owned an SSD until very recently.

 

[cplusplusguru]

Fair enough. I had assumed that the HDD is the only type of drive in the system, which is where I got my findings from. I had never owned an SSD until very recently.

Forgiven You are the first man on this forum to step up to correct the incorrect information you supplied earlier. Refreshing to see.

 

[zandor]

I'm thinking about doing something like what the OP was talking about. Has anyone tried setting up SSD caching on a non-boot volume? I want it for my Steam folder. It's already too big for my current SSDs and I don't want to buy a 512GB just for Steam.

I'm thinking about doing this:
Asus P9X79 board w/ Marvell 9128 (supports caching)
Intel SATA 6.0 #0: 128GB M4 Windows C:
Intel SATA 6.0 #1: 128GB M4 Linux/Games
Intel SATA 3.0 #2: 1TB HD Storage/scratch space for Linux, transfer partition, maybe an NTFS partition
Marvell 9128: HD with a small SSD caching it for my Steam directory + misc.

I already have the system set up with the 2 Crucial M4 128GB SSDs and the 1TB HD, so I'd be adding another disk and SSD to set up the cached volume. My OS, apps, and a few favorite games plus whatever RPG I'm playing at the moment will end up on the M4s.