Intel Smart Response Technology

davidst95

Distinguished
Apr 4, 2008
170
0
18,680
Hi,

I currently have a 120 GB SSD drive for my OS and frequent applications and 2 x 2 TB hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration. My motherboard supports Intel Smart Response Technology and has a slot for a msata ssd drive directly on the board. Would it be worth getting a 30 GB SSD drive for about 70 dollars (on newegg)? Would it speed up my conventional drives? Thanks.

David
 
Solution
Not knowing your MB and which drives are on which controller - My comments are more general.

1) If your 120 gig SSD is on the same controller, unless intel chipset you will have decreased performance most likely. The controller for your SSD should normally be msahci (if intel chipset iaSTor).

2) SRT performance, when a seperate OS + Program SSD is used, is largely a hit and miss and is Highly dependent on the individual user. If you repeditively use the same files, then good performance. However; if you are reading/writing to different files alot then the performance can be simular to HDD without SRT.

3) Just a comment, I'm not a lover of Raid1 using internal drives. It really only protects against a single drive failure...

catatafish

Distinguished
Feb 6, 2012
448
0
18,810
I'm using it with a 60mb Corsair that I got for right at 100 bucks. My HDD speed tests are on par with SSD so its super fast, however, I still have 38 second boots. So I'm either doing something wrong or I'm just not impressed. I was primarily hoping for 15 second boots but that just never happened. If I had to do it over again I'd just get a slightly larger capacity SSD, put Windows and a couple of games on it, and use my HDD for storage. You are correct that it won't assign a drive that you can see and use when you navigate windows, but it will show up as a recognized drive in your BIOS.
 
Not knowing your MB and which drives are on which controller - My comments are more general.

1) If your 120 gig SSD is on the same controller, unless intel chipset you will have decreased performance most likely. The controller for your SSD should normally be msahci (if intel chipset iaSTor).

2) SRT performance, when a seperate OS + Program SSD is used, is largely a hit and miss and is Highly dependent on the individual user. If you repeditively use the same files, then good performance. However; if you are reading/writing to different files alot then the performance can be simular to HDD without SRT.

3) Just a comment, I'm not a lover of Raid1 using internal drives. It really only protects against a single drive failure. Malware, viruses, MB failures, and even a PSU failure can wipe out both drives. My Past experience with drives has been positive, very few drive failures although some of the newer higher density drives seem to have higher failure rates. I always use an external drive to back up my data drives.

PS. You can use AS SSD to verify your OS + Program drive is set up properly. Do Not need to run the benchmark to check status. Open it an look at upper left. Will show you:
.. SSD make/model and firmware version.
.. Driver is msahci, iaSTor (recommended for intel chipsets), ..., if pcide will also show "BAD"
.. Partition alignment (aligned = good, not aligned - bad)

What I've done on all 3 of my systems is to to use two SSDs, one for OS +Programs and one for a work/scratch (data) disk. I place files that I know I use most frequently on the SSD as oppossed to a cache algorthum performing a educated quess. The two desktops have one/two HDD, the laptop only has two HDD bays. anf then I have 4 external HDD that can be shared between systems.
 
Solution

davidst95

Distinguished
Apr 4, 2008
170
0
18,680



Thanks for the response. I didn't think an extra mSATA SSD drive would slow down my current SSD drive. I was just looking for increase performance from my conventional drives. I didn't think that a PSU or a MB failure would wipe out both drives in a RAID 1 configuration. Maybe I have to readjust my setup. I have my SSD on a Intel Chipset and my 2 x 2 TB on a Marvel Chipset. Both are integrated on the motherboard.

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128505

SSD Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233206