Trolling for initial experiences with ISRT -- With a question . . .

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm at the end of my budget for a top-end Sandy Bridge. "Top-end" means I made some compromises here and there. I may be taking an informed risk with the new Asus P8Z68-V-Pro board -- without a BIOS revision history on it.

I'm tired of the weight and power-draw for a 3Ware controller and 4 SATA II drives running in my old machine as RAID5. Maybe it doesn't add much to my electric bill -- but I think it makes sense to balance performance against parts-outlays and energy consumption.

So I'm eager to try this new ISRT -- "Intel Smart Response Technology." I don't need a big capacity SSD, but I leaned toward SATA III in my choices, and ordered an Elm Crest 510 (Intel) with 120GB -- more than twice the capacity I thought I'd need, but the smaller SSD's were either "not Intel" or SATAII.

Now . . . . I have this inventory of hard disks I bought for this project and equally to augment my backup and server solutions around the house. I got 'em on "Memorial Day" sale for what I believe to be some decent prices. The smaller drives are SATAIII, and I bought two Samsung F3's -- which are SATA II.

Since the SSD is meant to cache the hard disk anyway with a maximum of 64 GB allowable size for it, how much difference would I really see between an SATAII hard disk and an SATAIII?

Any . . . experiences to relate? I'll be interested in comment. I know this is early in the "ISRT" ballgame . . . .

 

[dma0991]

If you have already paid for the 510, I suggest using that as a boot drive instead of relying on SRT which is not as good as using a SSD alone. I might have said otherwise if you had bought a SSD that is 40-60GB which is ideal for SRT in terms of price and cache size limitation.

Since the limit of SRT is 64GB, the rest of the space that is unused is not usable at all once you assigned that SSD as a cache.

SATA III would not make the F3 read/write faster than it would with a SATA II interface.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If you have already paid for the 510, I suggest using that as a boot drive instead of relying on SRT which is not as good as using a SSD alone. I might have said otherwise if you had bought a SSD that is 40-60GB which is ideal for SRT in terms of price and cache size limitation.

Since the limit of SRT is 64GB, the rest of the space that is unused is not usable at all once you assigned that SSD as a cache.

SATA III would not make the F3 read/write faster than it would with a SATA II interface.

The interface on the Z68 mobo has plenty of SATAIII plugs. EDIT: What I mean here -- I can choose to use either an SATA II or SATA III drive, and of course there will be a difference in performance for that choice.

But there would be an improvement just for having ISRT using an SATAIII SSD on an SATAIII plug, even for the HD operating as SATAII.

Also, From the prelim readings I've done so far, you can partition the remainder of the SSD and use it. So the 120GB - 64GB = 56GB of space would not be wasted . . . .

Bears looking into further, but I distinctly remember reading that the remaining SSD space can be used.

But that's why I'm posting this. There's plenty of time to "make adjustments." Usually, after purchasing the parts, I try to get things up and running before the 1-month deadline for returns to the reseller. But this time -- if I find something defective, I'll just go straight to the manufacturer under warranty. In any case, I still have about two-plus weeks left.

And I'm going to take my time 😀

 

[Zap]

Bears looking into further, but I distinctly remember reading that the remaining SSD space can be used.

Yes, it can.

Regarding HDDs, they aren't fast enough to saturate a SATA 6G connection beyond bursting data from cache, so performance difference should be near nil.

Why not go with a smaller/cheaper SSD? Go for some Sandforce 1200 controller SSD in 40-60GB range. Anand tested a 40GB Sandforce as the cache and it worked well.

 

[dma0991]

It could? 😵

Still, I would prefer to use the SSD exclusively as a boot drive. A smaller 40GB SSD for the SRT would have been more practical.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It could? 😵

Still, I would prefer to use the SSD exclusively as a boot drive. A smaller 40GB SSD for the SRT would have been more practical.

Probably right there, but it was either SATAII Intel for the smaller size, or SATAIII for what was offered. I looked into other options -- Crucial, OCZ, etc. I think there was a C300 model -- with no glitches working in either VISTA or Win 7. I'd seen cases for certain models where "people had trouble" with certain OS's.

So -- for the price, I figured to go with the smaller Elm Crest.

$500 or $600 is way too much for me to spend on a device that stores (whattizzit?) 256GB. I'd think even a 120GB SSD would be cramped. This "hybrid" idea seems better.

Won't really know until I try it myself. But it always helps to see what other people have discovered . . .