Give me your tips/pitfalls on using SSHD

[deltaforce]

Hello folks,

So I got SSHD for my laptop, hoping for a little speed and space. I am using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I know how SSHD works in principle but I am not a geek, so I am looking for expert tips on how I can best use this technology to my advantage.

I use one application for my work, which is pretty badly coded but saves a ton of time for me. I know more I use that application, the files will be cached in flash memory for easy access.

Apart from that, what care I should take not to mess it up?

FWIW, I am OCD about cleaning up my internet traces and temp files, although I do not do anything illegal. Will routine use of CCleaner or similar application affect negatively to this drive?

Thanks in advance.

 

[MontyAC]

Check this site:

http://lifehacker.com/5932009/the-complete-guide-to-solid+state-drives

 

[razel]

If this laptop is your personal laptop, 1st thing is to ensure you have 8GB-16GB of RAM. Win7 is fantastic at caching what you have done into RAM. To make it even more awesome with RAM usage, get used to sleeping the computer instead of shutting down. Disable Hybrid Sleep in the power settings to make going to sleep and waking no longer than a 2-5 second process.

Ensure the partition is aligned. You can download MiniTool's Partition Wizard. It's free. Checks for and corrects alignment. Using CCleaner will not affect the drive. Chances are your laptop also has an SD card reader. If you have a spare SD card, plug it in and enable ReadyBoost. If you don't move the laptop around much you can also use a spare USB flash drive. The more RAM you have, the less useful ReadyBoost becomes.

By the way, I have that same Seagate 5400RPM SSHD drive along with the previous Seagate 7200 SSHD. Sad to say but that I prefer the previous generation 7200 RPM SSHD from Seagate. Despite what benchmarks say, which is the performance is about even, to me in real-life the older one was snappier. However, this newer one is very quiet. I guess it's a trade.

 

[deltaforce]

Thanks Monty.
The article is exclusively for SSD so I am not too sure how much of it applies to SSHD because if my understanding is right, SSHD has only 8GB of flash memory which is primarily used for caching purpose. I will still go through it thoroughly.

@razel,
Thanks for the detailed reply.
This is my personal laptop and have upgraded RAM to 8GB, max that my laptop can handle. I am more used to hibernate than sleep but I will give it a try. I don't have any spare cards that can be useful. Those I have are old 1GB SD cards with very slow writing speeds and my camera uses compact flash so I don't have any.

 

[JellyRoll]

OK the first thing to remember is that they are only 5400 RPM, they SUCK once you get a cache miss, which is all the time. Your browser will be fast, sure, and boot time too. Other than that you are computing on a 5400 RPM HDD. Simple as that. I have one, and now i only use it for file storage. As slow as you can imagine for an OS drive. Boot time is not the be-all end-all. Once you are in the OS you will notice for sure, especially if you are accustomed to SSDs.
The price of SSDs are plummeting, get one and be happy. The new 840 EVO is awesome, big capacity for very cheap.

 

[MontyAC]

Sorry, misread your post.

 

[PokeyHokey]

Agree with Jelly, with prices coming down of regular SSDs, I would just get one of those. Hybrids/caches just dont seem worth it to me.

 

[deltaforce]

@JellyRoll and PokeyHokey,
I totally agree with you guys and even considered it but the fact is my machine is 3.5 years old and most SSDs I came across are more than $100. At this moment, I was not willing to spend more that amount, so SSHD fit my bill pretty good.

Secondly, I do not do 'computing' because I am not an IT guy. Most intensive work I would do occasionally is photoshop work, otherwise there is not much computing, except the program that I use, sucks a big time, so it needs a little faster drive and RAM.

With SSHD and extra RAM, it solved my problem and I am happy with the set up.


When it comes to the new machine, I WILL have SSD to boot and HDD to store. Hopefully in 2+ years or so.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I threw one of the new 5400rpm drives into my HTPC/server and I was quite underwhelmed with the performance. Perhaps I was expecting too much though, as all of my computers have been on SSDs for the past couple years.

 

[Cerb]

I threw one of the new 5400rpm drives into my HTPC/server and I was quite underwhelmed with the performance. Perhaps I was expecting too much though, as all of my computers have been on SSDs for the past couple years.

Hybrid HDDs make a lot of sense in notebooks that cannot use a 2nd internal drive, and aren't cool with paying $300-600 (and you can't buy >1TB at any price). Elsewhere, they're generally not worth the added cost, since they don't expose the flash. Caching that can be aware of the user's behavior, including what files are being accessed and how, has not only more information to work with, but much higher quality information. The drive, just seeing LBAs accessed, has to try to infer too much information, with low confidence, that caching similar to SRT can know for certain.

OP: Just use it. It will try to put small block accesses on the flash, along with commonly-accessed blocks, to help speed up program load times. Trying to do anything clever to force it to work better faster, will only make it worse for your daily use.

 

[Emulex]

Skip consumer and use the enterprise SSHD.

Best thing yet: Just use SSD its so freaking cheap (840 evo)

 

[Cerb]

Best thing yet: Just use SSD its so freaking cheap (840 evo)

1TB SSHD: $120
1TB SSD: $600-650 (M500-840 Evo)

It's cheap if you don't need the space, but otherwise, costs as much as a new notebook, and almost as much as a decent new notebook.

 

[deltaforce]

OP: Just use it. It will try to put small block accesses on the flash, along with commonly-accessed blocks, to help speed up program load times. Trying to do anything clever to force it to work better faster, will only make it worse for your daily use.

I have a question regarding the caching of the programs. I wonder if it keeps learning constantly i.e. I may be using program X more nowadays but if I start using program Y in future, will it cache program Y and drop program X?

Skip consumer and use the enterprise SSHD.
Best thing yet: Just use SSD its so freaking cheap (840 evo)

I would if the prices are reasonable, $600 is not cheap to me. I do not make $100K+.

 

[Cerb]

I have a question regarding the caching of the programs. I wonder if it keeps learning constantly i.e. I may be using program X more nowadays but if I start using program Y in future, will it cache program Y and drop program X?

It should, and most reviews show them doing that fairly well, but it's not like they give up their implementations.

 

[Blue_Max]

There's only one reason to use the SSHD - a laptop with only one drive bay, but you still need TONS of storage space (1TB).

If you can get by with 120-240GB of space, go pure SSD for only a tiny bit more money than the 1TB SSHD.