Standard SSD/HDD Setup or Z68 ISRT?

double-dragon

double-dragon

New Member
Hi guys,

I suspect the answer to this might be "Well, it depends how much stuff you use!", but I will ask the question anyway...

Between a standard SSD/HDD setup (OS & key programs/games on SSD) and an ISRT setup (SSD as 64GB cache for HDD), which will I get most/best performance out of?

I will mainly be running 3-5 games, web browser, and sometimes photoshop/movie editor.
My hardware will be a 64GB Crucial M4 SSD with a 1TB Seagate SATA-600 7200RPM 32MB HDD.

Cheers,

d_d
 
Benny Boy

Benny Boy

Active Member
imo

The SSD as a dedicated drive is better.
To me, Z68 is like a planned upgrade unless you got the dough to use it right away. Which means not building a system with 1 ssd but then put the os on the hdd. And does mean 2 ssd's of a different mother.

Z68 ssd casheing might be ok (but not really lol) if: The size of all the programs that you would benifit from the speed of ssd caching, exceeded the size of the ssd itself. Meaning the ssd isn't big enough to dedicate it to eveything you want to put on it, so you use it for cashing instead. It's a bit of an oxymoron tho because Intels says 64gb max for casheing so why not just use it dedicated. And 64gb is a lot for cashe. I think 20gb is more realistic unless your going to write so much so fast that it doesn't get written to HDD fast enough.

If I were going to use ssd casheing, I wouldn't take a large MLC drive and partition it for that purpose. Instead I'd have a dedicated MLC drive for the OS and whateverelse I'd benifit from the speed of, and a separate SLC drive for casheing since it would last much longer for that.

So imo, It doesn't matter how much stuff you'll use because your hw is 64gb and I'm pretty sure your exceeding that with your games. To get the most of best perf from it I'd say put what you will benifit most from the speed of, on the ssd. You won't have room for everything you listed, so see what's best. Some or all of the games may only load faster and more that likely use up a lot of real estate. Don't fill the drive up, or in time, it will slow down faster than normal.

Then, SLC casheing as an upgrade.
 
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double-dragon

double-dragon

New Member
Thanks for the reply Benny, I was beginning to think nobody would!

Anyway, I've been thinking about this and doing more research :)rolleyes:). I came across the Intel 311 Series 20GB SSD which is a SLC-type drive.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-311

It's slightly more expensive than the 64GB Cricual M4 that I'm looking at, but I'm sure I could free up that amount in my budget (cut out some UV lights and other **** I don't really need :p), and I would be getting the performance that SLC offers over MLC.
I can then purchase a MLC SSD at a later date to, like you suggested, house my OS.

Like you said, the 64GB is probably too large for cache, so the 311-series 20GB would be perfect at a small extra cost.

What do you think?

Cheers muchly,

d_d
 
Benny Boy

Benny Boy

Active Member
Might be hard to tell what my opinion is in my last paragraph. It is to use the 64gb MLC for c:\ first. The decide if another ssd for casheing would be worth it.
 
double-dragon

double-dragon

New Member
Thanks for the advice, Benny.

I have decided to adjust my rig slightly (cheaper monitor and PSU) so that I can get a 128gb SSD instead. This seems to be the value sweet-spot in the market right now and should offer me a bit more than just being able to house my OS.

I stayed with the Crucial M4 model after looking around, extensively, at other options (OCZ Vertex/Agility, Corsair etc). The M4 seems to offer good performance at a reasonable price and has great reviews to boot!

Maybe I will look into SSD Cache in the future :)
 
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