Extra 64GB SSD

Van G

Member
Apr 12, 2006
148
1
81
I've got a spare 64GB SSD on my desk.

Current desktop has 250 GB MX200 and 2 TB HDD running Win 10. I store user data on the 2 TB HDD (docs, d/l, vid, pic).

Given its only 64GB, any use for this in my current system for an improvement?
 

LoveMachine

Senior member
May 8, 2012
491
3
81
What's the rest of your system? Many new-ish Intel motherboards support hard drive caching with a smaller SSD (called SRT). If you have lots of frequently used files on the 2TB drive, it can improve performance and reduce noise. In my case, I use this in my main PC that also acts as a HTPC. It slightly improves performance but also reduces HD noise.

SRT is primarily for systems that don't have a large SSD as the primary drive (as yours does), and it greatly improves performance when the OS is located on the HD but the user doesn't want to fiddle with remembering which drive to install programs on (the system recognizes the combined drives as a single drive). BUT it does require your BIOS to be configured in RAID mode BEFORE installing Windows. There are registry hacks that don't require you to re-install Windows, but it doesn't always work. All of the above is from my experience with Win7. No idea if things have changed with Win10.

2nd option - turn off Swap/paging on the primary SSD and HD and use the smaller SSD as a big ol' swap file drive. If you don't have a lot of RAM it could free up some room on the primary SSD.

#3: Fill it with pron and enjoy fast pronning.