Solid State Drives (SSD) to use as cache to another Hard Drive (HD)

Question

I recently bought a 32GB SSD drive. As everybody knows, 32GB is nothing considering modern SO's like windows 8 or even windows 7 where only file systems takes the half of the whole space (about 15GB).

Aside to this SSD drive I have another 320GB 7200rpm HD where I used to use only for windows and program files.

I'm wondering if there is a way to combine this two technologies to build my own hybrid disk to enhance the performance on my PC.

I mean, I would like to use the SSD drive just like a cache to another HD drive.

Is that possible anyway?

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1

You have several options:

1. Several RAID cards have an option to use a SSD as fast cache. E.g. Nytro XD which might have been one of the first. But many followed. See this list of Hybrid arrays

2. The ZFS filesystem supports using a SSD as a fast cache. See the L2ARC part of ZFS.

3. Some motherboard/window installs allow something called IRST or Smart Response Technology

4. Or you could just install the OS on the SSD. I have no experience with window 8, but my win7-x64 install is 5 years old and it fits in about 20GB. (OS plus updates plus browsers plus a few essentials sunch as Opera, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, putty,..... But all data and my documents are on spinning rust).

5. Lastly you could use software RAID for a 32GB mirror (and use the remaining 320-32GB of the HDD for another partition). How well that works varies per RAID implementation and RAID mode. (E.g. mirror? Stripe?),

Solution 2

If your BIOS doesn't support Intel Smart Response (I'm looking at you Lenovo), you can use ExpressCache to make the system use your SSD as a cache for the hard drive. This is how my Lenovo laptop shipped (IdeaPad Y500 - 16GB mATA SSD, 1TB spinny).

I have no hard numbers to indicate how much it helps.

Comments

[mveroone]

Windows 8 probably require more space...

[mveroone]

Along with usual WinSXS folder exponential growth over time...

[Sun]

There is also Windows ReadyBoost. It was meant for flash drives, but you can experiment using the entire drive for cache. It could potentially improve your read performance after the first time. If you have repetitive tasks such as loading game maps on a first person shooter (FPS), you might be able to see the difference.