How to configure Intel Rapid Response, Windows swap file & physical SSDs

[NAC]

I currently have I think an 80 gig SSD which is my C: drive. It is out of space so I'll be replacing with a 240 gig drive. I also have 2 2tb hard drives with data – mostly photos and videos. I do a fair amount of video and photo editing. I believe I should setup a SSD with Intel Rapid Response technology for the hard drives. My questions are:

Can I leverage just a partition for Intel Rapid Response – say part of the new 240 gig SSD? That would enable me to install the old SSD in a laptop.

Or, will I benefit from using the old SSD for Rapid Response since it will be a different physical drive from C: ? And how much of a benefit? Note that I don't use the laptop much, a small gain on my main computer might be worth keeping the old hard drive on the laptop.

And if I should setup the old SSD for Rapid Response, should I put the windows swap file on that drive in a partition? (I forget if I can even put the swap file in a partition other than C

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you are putting a 240GB SSD as your main drive, and have a 2TB data drive, just use it that way. RST is useful, if you are actually running programs off of a HDD, by caching them on the SSD. Purely data files, especially sequential ones like movies and media, do not really benefit from RST, AFAIK.

Just re-purpose the 80GB SSD for your laptop, or whatever.

 

[Cerb]

As said, just use the drive by itself.
But do put your page file on it. Or, rather, install Windows w/o the 2TB HDD connected, and it will handle that all by itself .

 

[NAC]

Hmm.. . I had thought (hoped) that RST would help with frequently used media files. When I make a video I'll tend to use the same few folders of photos/videos as I'm editing and deciding which ones to use. And I'll tend to play back the video & render a fair amount, giving RST time to recognize what I'm using.

I could of course manually move over the folders while I'm working but I think that might become unmanageable if I forget to move modified things back.

 

[Cerb]

You could, but the savings would be pretty small, and absolutely limited to 64GB (though according to Intel, even 20GB is basically wasting space, already, with SRT).

If rendering and editing aren't CPU limited, you should probably look into how you could use more RAM, first.

 

[NAC]

Thanks for the advice.

I've been reading up on SRT. Apparently it is not designed to leverage the same physical drive as the C: drive. There is a way to get around that and install it on the C: drive, basically by installing windows on a different drive, installing SRT, and then re-installing windows on the same physical drive as SRT.

I also see a lot of doubt, but no real tests/evidence, if SRT will help to speed up a data drive for my scenario.

Since I haven't used my laptop in literally months, I'll make my own test. I'll install windows on the new SSD, time some operations in Sony Vegas, install SRT using the other drive, and then time the same operations in Sony Vegas. I'll time how long it takes to open a project, and how long it takes to render it, say 10 times, and see if it gets quicker. My assumption is that if opening or rendering is faster, other actions would be faster. And I'll see if subjectively it seems to respond quicker.
If I see no or little change, then I can leverage the SSD for my laptop.

I'll post results here either way for others' benefit.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Thanks for the advice.

I've been reading up on SRT. Apparently it is not designed to leverage the same physical drive as the C: drive. There is a way to get around that and install it on the C: drive, basically by installing windows on a different drive, installing SRT, and then re-installing windows on the same physical drive as SRT.

I also see a lot of doubt, but no real tests/evidence, if SRT will help to speed up a data drive for my scenario.

Since I haven't used my laptop in literally months, I'll make my own test. I'll install windows on the new SSD, time some operations in Sony Vegas, install SRT using the other drive, and then time the same operations in Sony Vegas. I'll time how long it takes to open a project, and how long it takes to render it, say 10 times, and see if it gets quicker. My assumption is that if opening or rendering is faster, other actions would be faster. And I'll see if subjectively it seems to respond quicker.
If I see no or little change, then I can leverage the SSD for my laptop.

I'll post results here either way for others' benefit.

I've been through this ISRT experience since it was introduced on the Z68 boards three years ago. The best use of it seems limited to caching/accelerating your boot-system disk (C. You might run into trouble using an SSD larger than 64GB. Under that scenario, you WILL show a performance boost so the accelerated HDD appears to be working at 80% of SSD speed -- for OS, frequently used programs and so on.

I wouldn't do it with large media files -- you probably won't notice any performance gains -- but, sure, try it and test it.

For me, it was a choice brought about by declining SSD prices. I cloned my accelerated HDD to an 840-Pro and haven't looked back since. I'll use the SSD cache-drive (60GB) to store shadow copies on my server.