Z68 - SRT cache and boot volume on a single SSD disk - it works!

[Chaoticlusts]

wow I sleep for a few hours and this whole thread explodes...

there's a misunderstanding here I'm a bit wiped out from a virus and other crap that I'm finding it hard to see where but as for a couple of the things

I've been researching the SRT tech since it launched to try and find out if this exact setup was possible during that time the things I found by fact that were possible is
1: you can definitely use an SSD cache on a secondary drive and it can be highly beneficial (granted there's only a few usage scenario's that benefit the big one being gaming)
2: the cache will only cache data from the drive it's attached too it won't cache data from elsewhere in the system (so it won't cache the OS if the OS is on another drive)
3: any space beyond the cache partition is still entirely usable as another drive

the 4th question I couldn't find an answer for anywhere until this thread popped up (and *#@& I looked ) was whether you could use one SSD for both a dedicated OS partition and an SRT cache

this is what aszu is trying to explain here something that was never explored in any reviews or any data from intel and the standard install process like he mentioned wasn't designed to allow for it

so yes he's not following the correct setup steps but that's because he's creating a setup that is atypical so the normal setup steps don't work (hense the work around he posted)

he's not saying you can't install an OS then setup SRT he knows you can do that what he's saying is you can't partition a SSD install an OS on it then setup the remaining space of that same SSD as SRT since it will wipe the OS partition during the setup so in this one particular scenario you have to do an odd work around

I hope I'm clarifying this disagreement more than exacerbating it aszu I don't think Nemesis is trolling I think this is just a weird misunderstanding if I"m reading it right..this may not be a clear explanation though as well...like I said I'm sleep deprived and feverish

 

[Nemesis 1]

Explain to me point 1. You can have only 1 ssd on the system . According to Intel who created the SRT software. Inorder to have a secondary HHd as you say . It would have to be on the other controller such as Marvell. It can't be on the same controller as the SSD and the HDD . Because that would not be Raid. The system to use SRT has first be set to raid in the bios. SFT will not function in raid 1.

Link to other than these facts. Your words go against what Intel has said about their software.

You say you have researched this and that it is possiable to do your point 1. Link to that research.

 

[piquadrat]

I'm wondering what if the caching ssd fails. It happens, we can all agree with that. As the ssd drive is in some raid relation to a cached platter drive, does the data stored on those usually big storage/system drive safe in such scenario? Or you can say bye bye to lets say 2 or 3TB of your beloved and long gathered bytes?
So we should multiply probabilities of non-failure working of both drives (caching and cached) or not?

>Nemesis 1
As far as I know you can mix raided and non-raided drives on the same intel controller (in raid mode).
And you cannot cache the drive connected to any other controller than intel's one. The raid relation required. Which is BTW a sad news for me as I have 4 drives on external PCIEx controller and most definitely I cannot cache this volume with intel technology.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I'm wondering what if the caching ssd fails. It happens, we can all agree with that. As the ssd drive is in some raid relation to a cached platter drive, does the data stored on those usually big storage/system drive safe in such scenario? Or you can say bye bye to lets say 2 or 3TB of your beloved and long gathered bytes?
So we should multiply probabilities of non-failure working of both drives (caching and cached) or not?

>Nemesis 1
As far as I know you can mix raided and non-raided drives on the same intel controller (in raid mode).
And you cannot cache the drive connected to any other controller than intel's one. The raid relation required. Which is BTW a sad news for me as I have 4 drives on external PCIEx controller and most definitely I cannot cache this volume with intel technology.

On your first point . If the SSD fails you will have all the information that was IN cache on the HHD for sure if you use the default mode for SRT. If you choose the second choice You may still have all that information on the HDD depending on when failure takes place .

On your second point . I not sure about All of what you stated . As I in my own experiance haven't tried this . If I going to use more than 2 hdds I will simply Raid 0 both drives for better performance but take the chance losing data in case of failer . Ya you do get that what the OP was trying to do just can't be done period .

Now the 3rd point you bring up xternal drive I haven't used Xternal drive for along time as I found a dedacated Pc for media storage offline is the best way to go set up in raid 1.

My reason for this is 2 fold HACKS and the Law . I have 1000,s of songs that i downloaded from the net for free. I don't need problems with the law on this issue . So I keep that material offline. But to be fair my thinking is that you can still use your eternal drives for storage. But I wouldn't bet on it .

If your thinking about buying a Z68 M/B buy the MSI . WHY? As you know the present SB does not support on the cpu sataIII . But MSI z68 has support for sataIII already built in for sataIII cpu support. You should go to MSI site and read about these 2 M/B the 65/80 z68 models . Its pretty cool and I just couldn't turn my back on what MSI offers .

 

[Chaoticlusts]

Explain to me point 1. You can have only 1 ssd on the system . According to Intel who created the SRT software. Inorder to have a secondary HHd as you say . It would have to be on the other controller such as Marvell. It can't be on the same controller as the SSD and the HDD . Because that would not be Raid. The system to use SRT has first be set to raid in the bios. SFT will not function in raid 1.

Link to other than these facts. Your words go against what Intel has said about their software.

You say you have researched this and that it is possiable to do your point 1. Link to that research.

umm first you do know there are 2 intel sata 3 ports on z68 motherboards standard... so you put the SSD on one and the HDD on the other (there are plenty of sata 3 HDD's) assuming you definitely need them on the same controller which I don't think I've heard specifically but I figured that could quite possibly be the case depending on what level the process was implemented

some forum topics with people posting in them saying they are currently running the OS on one SSD and using a second SSD for SRT with another HDD

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-677928.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/269739-32-caching
(on that one there's debates on the merits but people agree it's doable, merits is mainly cause some people seem to assume the only use for large space is media storage the forget about games)

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2594&page=3
this review specifically says in the middle it's possible though says it has little to no benefits but fails to provide any data and again I assume they aren't thinking about games (which is the only usage scenario I can think of for this particular setup)

also anand's review of the tech while not stating it outright alludes to using it on a non-boot drive as it states in the losing data section that *if* the drive that is cache enabled is the boot disk you risk not being able to boot in a drive failure situation

there are more articles out there but I'm at work and need to get some things done...I'm still not sure why your so adamant this is impossible when there's people saying they are running this setup around...I haven't really seen anything from intel saying it isn't possible more just saying the intended usage scenario is different

oh also look at the setup dialog for SRT itself in any review under the section where you pick which HDD to accelerate it says "select the boot disk or volume for optimal acceleration" that alone should tell you it's possible to use it to accelerate something other than the boot disk, just not 'optimal'

. Ya you do get that what the OP was trying to do just can't be done period .

umm..you do get the OP wasn't asking if he could do this setup he was stating he has done it and it works...

 

[Nemesis 1]

Well I may have missed the OP saying that he used the intel controller & the onboard controller . As I read it . He was trying to do this on one controller and you can't run 2 SSDs on one controller. When you set up to use SRT all you do is go to controller your using and set to raid , YOU can not set up for RAID 1 on that controller. SRT will not function, If you use a larger SSD volumn than 64g. Than raid 0 will be automaticly configured to use with the HDD. I seen noware that the OP said he was using 2 SSD and both controllers on the board. As for using both controllers being able to use SRT I haven't tried that and I wouldn't do that as it makes no sense to do such a thing. If your going to use 2 SSDs on your system the money is better spent buying the Intel 510 or another brand and letting the SRT setup for for Raid 0 . SRT will not work in raid 1.

So were you got the the OP using 2 controllers and 2 SSDs I can't see that . This topic is and wasn't ever about setting up for 2 controllers . On my MSI I use the intel controller With a sataIII HDD and a 510 SSD Intel SataIII thats on my Gamer . On my browser I setup to use the same HDD sataIII along with a 40g intel 320 sataII running off the sataIII intel controller. Works great . I also use on both setups the default accelerator

All I seen on your links was people tring to prove a false . I also clearly seen that most do not understand how SRT works . YOU said you researched this . I asked for link proving this research and than you link to forums were the people doing the talking were clueless . You offered no proof of your research . NONE!

 

[Nemesis 1]

For those who want to set up there systems properly I got this link for you . As you will see It follows the Intel setup guide exactly as It says . What the OP did was select the 18.9 gig setup . Than tried to setup the OS to run seperatly. Good luck with that.
The thing the The video doesn't talk about is How many times the Boot up was done befor they timed it , The more times you run an app or boot up the better the results will be say after 3 boots that should be the real world usage .

Its simple and clean But no matter what you do using just the intel controller the OS will always be in the Cache unless you setup on another controller on the M/B which makes no sense and offers no real world gains if it can even be done which I doubt.

Heres the video showing just how easy this setup is ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei7kkOHa0iw

Now here is another Video good info. BUT he made an error. I will try to find a video that covers this . I used this video because he uses a Intel SSD 20 g and also later another brand using 120g . I would have liked it if he would have shown the 120g SSD setup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGD48ihLQCI&feature=related

I couldn't find a video . But intel clearly states in their SRT setup guide that more than one HDD can be used. I personnly have not tried 2 hdds. But I will order another matching drive tomoorow for my gamer and see how that works out. As intel clearly states that when using an SSD with great than 64g and the above Video shows the use og a 120g SSD(my error he is comparring the 120 ssd to the SRT system . But clearly raido is confiured automaticly with greater than 64g SSD installed mine works fine. . That the remaining 54 g on the SSD is used threw automatic Raid O selection . I will try to setup using Raid 0 to install the OS . IF that fails I will try using raid as seen in both videos as they do differ in how SRT was set up befor OS was installed In the bios setup befor booting the OS . I really don't see a problem with setting up Raid 0 befor the OS install because of the fact when a 120g SSD is used raid 0 is automaticly set up as per intel instruction guide lines.

I did however grab another Video that has nothing to do with SRT but shows the advantage of using using sata III . and why I choose that route for my gaming rig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw0eKszOS7w


Also to ever is changing what I write . Knock it off.

 

[aszu]

For those who want to set up there systems properly I got this link for you.

Please stop.
You clearly have no clue what are you talking about and just confusing people.

I got one 96GB SSD and 1TB HDD and got following options:

1. Install OS on the HDD, then configure SRT to use 64GB of SSD as cache. Rest of the space will create additional volume which would identify itself as RAID 0 (which in fact is not true and this is not RAID at all - it is just bunch of free space with no relation whatsoever to any other RAID volume you may have on your PC).
This will give me only 32GB of space on SSD - there is not much I can do with it really.

2. Install OS on the HDD then configure SRT to use 18.6GB for cache. Similar situation, but this time I get about 77GB of space on SSD. I could use it to install most frequently used applications, etc - but it would be a bit of pain to manage it.

3. The best (IMO) option - Install OS on SSD and allocate 18.6GB of space on the same SSD for cache volume (that would accelerate my 1TB HDD).
In such case:

- OS and core programs are always loaded from SSD - the performance is superior to having OS on HDD and caching it with SRT
- 18.6GB is 'intelligently' used by SRT to accelerate my apps on 1TB HDD.

 

[piquadrat]

>aszu
I have followed your guide and it's working.
I have 4 platter drives and one ssd. Now I'm running Win7 from the ssd and cache 2x RAID-0 setup of conventional drives using the same ssd.
Some thoughts:
- You can't cache Matrix volumes. Sad news for me
- You are loosing trim as the caching ssd is in fact inside raid setup
- Indeed you have to plug out your temporary system drive during system installation on ssd. Other way setup could not find my ssd even if I loaded intel's rapid storage driver from the usb stick.
- The best way to setup the whole thing is to enable acceleration in temporary system and disable it. This way Rapid Storage Technology app leaves ssd in Accelerate ready state (with double RAID-0 defined) but you have no ssd-hdd cache assignment. If you leave the assignment you most probably end with bootsector placed on cached hard drive (!!!). And removing drive caching inside the final system makes it unbootable!!!
Anyway thanks for the guide!

 

[Nemesis 1]

This I see as do able.

. Install OS on the HDD, then configure SRT to use 64GB of SSD as cache. Rest of the space will create additional volume which would identify itself as RAID 0 (which in fact is not true and this is not RAID at all - it is just bunch of free space with no relation whatsoever to any other RAID volume you may have on your PC).
This will give me only 32GB of space on SSD - there is not much I can do with it really.

Its also the first time you discussed this method, This is what ANand slide would show as Plug and play. That I brought up. So I do have a clue. I have never used this method but Anand slide clearly showed it . I also take exception to that fact that you deny that your using Raid 0 and saying its not raid 0 . The thought of trim not working must have entered your head and you seen the folly of this setup.

This is the part I take exception to .

The best (IMO) option - Install OS on SSD and allocate 18.6GB of space on the same SSD for cache volume (that would accelerate my 1TB HDD).
In such case:

- OS and core programs are always loaded from SSD - the performance is superior to having OS on HDD and caching it with SRT
- 18.6GB is 'intelligently' used by SRT to accelerate my apps on 1TB HDD.

Piquadrat Which guided is it exactly you followed. in THIS reply 60 . The second setup in reply 60 . It looks more to me as if you followed Intels setup guide. and yes trim is lost . Thats why on my browser I didn't a 510 ssd I wanted trim . The whole Idea of partitioning the SSD to have the OS on SSD makes no sence as the OS will always be in Cache .

A screen shoot showing Of both these setups would be most helpful . You can get a screen shot of this correct.

I would like to know how having the OS on the SSD partican is any better than having it in the cache. Once the OS is loaded It will always remain in the cache so your not loading it from the HDD. AS you claim . Not only the because you have the OS in this partision it will degrade faster than a properly setup system. And I doubt very much that you can use trim on it . If you can .Than I may try this on my gaming setup. Your plug and play you discribed I believe that also . But that second setup looks like nothing but trouble in the long term as degading rears its ugly head.

 

[aszu]

>aszu
I have followed your guide and it's working.

Thanks for confirming that SRT does not work on matrix raid.

However, it works very well on 'normal' RAID volumes, here:

http://imageshack.us/f/641/testsrq.png/

 

[aszu]

I would like to know how having the OS on the SSD partican is any better than having it in the cache.

This:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4329/37584.png

Performance of plain SSD is superior to cached HDD (even in maximized mode). Since (as you mentioned many times) OS is the most used program, it would make sense to keep it on the fastest possible medium.

I would like to make OS and the most frequently used programs (browser, AV, office, etc) as fast as possible - hence I place them on SSD data volume. In this case I will be sure that these are ALWAYS loaded from SSD - I do not have to rely on pretty obscure SRT algorithm (which for instance may decide to purge OS from cache in favour of some game - there is no guarantee that OS will ALWAYS be in cache)

For rest of the apps/games I have got on my HDD, I let SRT decide what data would be most beneficial to cache.

 

[Nemesis 1]

You better reread what I wrote as I edited and added , Your so called gain is infact a loss . You say this is not raid0 Intel says It is raid 0 and you can not trim in raid 0.

So your speedier method degrades rather quickly . I see no advantage to this setup only negitives because its degrades faster, I was well aware of this when I set up the 510 on my gamer . I infact thought about using just 2 510 in raid 0 and getting the very best performance but not having trim on my browser wasn't appealing at all. So I decided on the gamer to use 1 510 sata III and when it degrades just replace it with another 510 . Plug and play style . Using SRT. We have right now on the shelf 10 120g 510 sata III. So losing one over time doesn't bother me as many weeks I don't even look at the gamer. But the browser be under constant use. Your link shows a SSD Sata III No were in your setup have you mentioned sata III Which brings me back to post 59. Unless he has the same gaming M/B as I do with pcie-3 . He is using Sata II as there are not enough sata II ports on his M/B to for 3 sata III ports. To use a single controller . The MSI z80 M/B that you can buy in the states don't have enough ports either . But It does say that 6 of the ports on board can be used for raid setups . This does not include use with SRT.

 

[piquadrat]

Thanks for confirming that SRT does not work on matrix raid.

However, it works very well on 'normal' RAID volumes, here:

http://imageshack.us/f/641/testsrq.png/

Yes, I have such setup at the moment:


The black circle indicates cache assignment.

The strange thing is that when you define any Matrix storage volume the Accelerate button just disappears. So even if you have one or two additional drives which are still not a part of any raid and you want to enable caching for them... you can't.
The beauty of aszu's idea is that when you setup your ssd for such hybrid working you can redefine which drive/volume you want to cache at any time later. Cache "subpartition" is free and waiting for any use as a cache. For instance you can change it's assignment to a new drive which you will buy in the future.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I have no dougt that you can usemore than 2 hdds . I have not tried it tho so I in fact do not know . But intels setup guide says you can . So thats the only thing I am going by . The rest of what your both saying maybe a trueth or a false as far as I am concerned. But I see no benefit in it whats so ever as you cann't use trim and that is a deal breaker. Unless your willing to on a high performance setup replace the SSD as it degrades to the point of uselessness. Your settup for example you have to be using sata II . As there are not enough sata III ports on your M/B to do HDD raid 0. My gamer(wifes) M/B has 3 Sata III ports. You might say big deal . My M/B has 4 SATA III ports
As does my browser. 2 on the marvell controller and 2 on the Intel controller . So your using sata II somewhere on your set up . ports 1-6 are available for Raid setups . but not using SRT.

You also said you were using 4 platters Thats 4 Hdds. But your graph does not show this. Ok I see that after looking again . But I not real sure what I am looking at as I have never done this . But it looks to me like you have 2 hhds and an SSD on 1 controller and 2 hhds raid 0 on another controller . I do not see 4 hdds being accelerated


YOU wrote this

The strange thing is that when you define any Matrix storage volume the Accelerate button just disappears. So even if you have one or two additional drives which are still not a part of any raid and you want to enable caching for them... you can't

Read intels setup again .

If your SSD has lets say 120g and you do not assign say 18 g in the set up and just do the whole SSD volumn which would be the 64g cache volumn even if its only a 40g ssd as I am using on my browser . With my gamer I use the same exact setup I only use the max volumn so I not defining anything . and raid 0 is setup automaticly . So I haven't defined anything.

 

[piquadrat]

There are two arrays in my setup. Each consists of two drives. One is called: Source and it is cached, second: Destination. But I'm not trying to convince anybody. The best way is always to try by yourself.
Yes the lack of trim can be deal breaker. I have to watch the performance degradation over time in my setup and then decide. I have intel 320 Series 80GB and they usually have very good garbage collectors. But we will see.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I do like the way you presented your setup. Here is my thoughts on using 2 hdds . My first option would be to follow intels instructions for setting up single drive but using 2 but only using the raid function in the bios setup. Load the OS if it will. Use the larger than 64g SSD and follow the steps exactly IF it loads the OS. Than because of the greater than 64g on the SSD it should setup raid 0 automaticly.

My other option would be to just install the the 2 hard drives in raid 0 than do a plug and play . I have know idea if this would work . I won't see bob for another month or so as he is in asia. But I pretty sure he could show me how to do this.

 

[aszu]

You better reread what I wrote as I edited and added , Your so called gain is infact a loss . You say this is not raid0 Intel says It is raid 0 and you can not trim in raid 0.

Intel tool displays RAID 0, but this data volume is not a 'real' RAID 0 (it is not RAID at all). RAID 0 means data striping (with no redundancy) across multiple disks - here you have got only one physical disk so no 'normal' striping can take place. Intel just uses this name for data volume on SSD to point out that there is no redundancy on this particular disk (RAID 0 obviously is not redundant).

Cache volume is also identified as RAID 0 - but it has nothing to do with typical RAID at all.

However, it is true that enabling SRT cache on SSD (in any configuration) disables pass-through mode on the controller and OS cannot communicate with the SSD directly any more (i.e. to send TRIM commands). At the current state, TRIM will not work on Intel RAID volumes. So if you use your SSD for SRT (whatever setup you pick), you have to keep this in mind.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Ya I found that out yesterday about the trim . So I pulled a 510 Sata III off the shelf and go with the single faster drive. Complete overkill for a browser. But I will have trim . But it did save me some money . I was going Buy and install another Hdd on the gamer . But Now I will just use the one I had in the browser and call it a day . Now to get rid of the 40g 320sataII . I sell it cheap $70. used about a week

 

[Hawthorne]

First of all, thanks Aszu for figuring out how to this. I was originally planning to try to split my Corsair F120 like this, but it looked like it wasn't going to be possible until I found this thread. I followed the steps and it works perfectly. I ended up letting IRST take the full 64gb for the cache, which left 57gb for the OS.

However, I did run into a snag with the HDD I'm trying to accelerate. I made the mistake of buying a 3TB Seagate Barracuda, and it seems that IRST doesn't support >2TB drives in RAID. When I pair the cache and the drive, it looks it's working, but as soon as I reboot, the drive gets disabled and is offline in Windows. I have to launch IRST and break the pairing and then online the disk. The drive is fine as long as it's in non-RAID mode. Anyone else have this issue and know if it's possible to get this working? I hate to have to buy another HDD drive at this point just to get this working, or wait for Intel to update IRST to support this, assuming that's the problem.

 

[aszu]

However, I did run into a snag with the HDD I'm trying to accelerate. I made the mistake of buying a 3TB Seagate Barracuda, and it seems that IRST doesn't support >2TB drives in RAID.

Yes, that could be problematic

Do you use 64 bit version of Windows?
Also, is it running in UEFI or old BIOS mode?

 

[Hawthorne]

Yes, that could be problematic

Do you use 64 bit version of Windows?
Also, is it running in UEFI or old BIOS mode?

It's 64 bit Windows 7 and yes the motherboard ( Asus P8Z68-v pro ) is running in UEFI. I think if it wasn't it wouldn't even see the drive in non-Raid mode. I found a thread on another board where someone was trying to raid multiple 3tb drives together using IRST and couldn't do it. The response he got was that IRST doesn't support drives larger than 2TB in raid mode, but Intel was going to support it in the future. I assume that's why this doesn't work either. Oh well, at least the cache is setup and when they do support it I can just try pairing it up then.

 

[Hawthorne]

Heh, just noticed I wasn't at the latest release of Intel RST, so I updated to 1027 and now the caching of the 3tb hdd seems to be working! Very happy now

​

 

[aszu]

Heh, just noticed I wasn't at the latest release of Intel RST, so I updated to 1027 and now the caching of the 3tb hdd seems to be working! Very happy now
​

Great news!
Yes, 1027 version seems to be the latest one - this is the one I use on my Z68 Pro3.

 

[Chaoticlusts]

Well all my parts arrived the other day I've been busy as hell with work atm (this month is insane) and other crap so I've only had time to partially build it so far (gotten the MB/cpu/heatsink/PSU/RAM installed(not in that order obviously )...now gotta do all the cabling put the drives in and finally the GPU (since I gotta rip that out of my current computer I'm leaving that till last but when I do pull it out I've got an old 8800GTX to go back in it's place)

But yeah once all the hardware setup is done I'll do this install and report back my results may not be till next week though things are a bit insane atm, I'm assuming I'll have success (maybe with some drama's to deal with )

Yeah ok I give up explaining the confusion the one last thing I will say though is I never said *anything* about multiple controllers..I was simply talking about 2 partitions on ONE SSD one for OS one for SRT the SRT being attached to a DIFFERENT DISK so the OS won't exist in cache as SRT only caches things from the disk it's attached too... and we *know* this is all possible cause 2 people in this thread have it successfully running

oh and I know the forum posts I found weren't the best ones..yes there were people in those saying they'd done the 2SSD thing most of the people debating whether you could or couldn't were working on theory I haven't seen one report from someone who's actually *tried* it and failed.... I"m not going to do all the searching up for forum threads across the net and reading all the SRT things again just to prove a point
1: I'm busy and really can't be bothered
2: I'm currently dealing with a pretty massive personal crisis so am not inclined to go to great lengths for something that doesn't really matter..


Oh one last question though I'm going to look this up a bit myself...what kind of performance degradation (in terms of noticeable rather than measurable in benchmarks) would you get running an SSD (specifically a sandforce 2xxx with it's garbage handling) if the computer is primarily used for browsing/gaming/media....I don't run anything like encoding apps or video/photo editing apps or any big ones like that..all my non gaming apps are tiny things

*edit* also I should add in the question of degradation...is it only write speeds that suffer?