Need help/opinion on HDD and SSD for RST

There is a lot of misunderstanding about caching. Intel developed caching for clients and businesses that could not afford a large capacity ssd. Back when the concept was on the drawing board, Intel hoped clients and businesses would purchase a small 10Gb or 20GB ssd for about $100.00 (Intel M11 ssd). Microsoft Windows 7 and all software applications would remain on hard disk drives. The cache produced a boost in hard drive performance but it was not equal to a stand alone ssd. Intel hoped that once clients saw the slight performance boost they might be inclined to purchase a larger ssd for much better performance.

Intel also researched the size of the cache all the way up to 512 GB. Intel determined that a 60GB ssd was the point where it made no sense to use the ssd as a cache for a hard drive. Instead if you have a 60GB or larger capacity ssd, then Windows 7 and software applications should be installed on the ssd to take full advantage of the ssd capabilities.

Since you are asking about the Crucial M4 64GB ssd, it makes more sense to install Windows 7 and your software applications on the ssd. The ssd performance boost is higher than the hard disk drive performance increase.

Windows 7 will use up a just a little over 21GB leaving plenty of room for software applications or a few games. Additoinal games can bestored on the hard disk drive. The games can be swapped as needed.

Well said, Johnny.
Just to add: A SSD, or SSD + HDD (SRT) will not make a program run faster. What it does is allows the program to load faster, but once in memory - no advantage. The only added benifit is when "in game" and the game requires a map to be loaded, that one aspect will be speed up - Not a biggy normally.

Fully agree with johnny on using a 64 gig M4 as a OS + Program drive, NOT for SRT.