use existing msata on the HDD of a WD Black²?

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fimbot

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Dec 4, 2013
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Hi,

I am considering purchasing a Western Digital Black² drive unit ,a combined 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD at laptop standard 2.5"/9.5mm size.

My current Dell laptop already has a small mSATA drive and a 1TB hard drive.

I would like to use the 120GB SSD of the WD Black² for my operating system, and the 1TB drive for data.

Would I be able to configure the mSATA drive to cache the 1TB HDD drive of the WD Black²?

Am I likely to see any vast improvements in speed over the existing mSATA/HDD set-up?
 
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Tom Tancredi
Yes you are confusing things. First mSATA is not a 'drive' per say, that is a INTERFACE for any drive using the smallest form factor out there (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA , scroll down and you can see how small a mSATA drive is). So the mSATA connection would connect a SSD, DVD, Bluray, HDD, what ever to be accessible by the computer that the manufacuter made. Currently just SSDs.

What the WD Black is doing is combining (as I mentioned) into the drive both the 120GB SSD with the 1TB already, with a single interface. So it will appear as two drives, but physically take the space / connection of a single drive. According to the press release "offering the flexibility to choose how and where their data is stored...
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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May 9, 2013
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NO, you can't "cache" a HDD, that has to be built INTO the HDD, you can't "add" that to a HDD. The point of a SSD cache on some HDD (call SSHD) is a way to sell 5400RPM sloooooowwww drives, for the cost of a 7200RPM drive and have the same 'performance'. It gives Seagate more profit for less cost of manufacturing.
 
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F

fimbot

Honorable
Dec 4, 2013
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10,510


Hi Tom,

Thanks for replying.

But surely that is what my current mSATA is doing to the current 1TB HDD? The mSATA is not integral to the slower drive. Or am I totally missing the "how" the mSATA impacts in such a configuration?

 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

Judicious
May 9, 2013
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Yes you are confusing things. First mSATA is not a 'drive' per say, that is a INTERFACE for any drive using the smallest form factor out there (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA , scroll down and you can see how small a mSATA drive is). So the mSATA connection would connect a SSD, DVD, Bluray, HDD, what ever to be accessible by the computer that the manufacuter made. Currently just SSDs.

What the WD Black is doing is combining (as I mentioned) into the drive both the 120GB SSD with the 1TB already, with a single interface. So it will appear as two drives, but physically take the space / connection of a single drive. According to the press release "offering the flexibility to choose how and where their data is stored. Utilizing the benefits of both flash and magnetic disks, WD Black2 dual drives offload data usage from the SSD to the HDD, which increases endurance and life of the SSD." So there is probably a software mechinism involved that will load the OS / critical files (like a cache) onto the SSD element, but the rest (my video, my music, my documents, Game XYZ, etc.) onto the 1TB. So instead of cache (reading ahead anticipating what data your likely to need next and holding it ready to us) it is a storage methodology improvement and design.

I personally wouldn' t mess with your specific laptop configuration, as it won't yield more gain at the moment unless you removed the mSATA SSD and 1TB Drive and just went ONLY with a WD Black solution, but I can't say that would be 'perfect' solution as it is a brand new product.
 
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