SSD caching on ASUS Rampage IV Extreme

[Oddball2012]

Hello,
I've got an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard, a Crucial 64GB SSD and a 2TB seagate HDD. I'm trying to set up the SSD as a cache for the HDD. The Intel RSTE software won't support SSD caching and neither will the ASUS AI Suite II software. I've tried using the two Intel SATA ports and the ASMedia SATA ports, but neither of them work. Has anyone tried SSD caching on this mobo before? Does the Rampage IV Extreme even support SSD caching?

 

[Pinhedd]

it does not support SSD caching

 

[Oddball2012]

That doesn't make any sense. Why would they not include SSD caching?

 

[RetiredChief]

From a review of X79
"Speaking of storage, Intel does not offer Smart Response Technology (SSD Caching) on the X79 chipset. We aren't terribly surprised that it isn't included; after all, if you are paying $999.00 for the Intel Core i7 3960X you will likely be using a good sized SSD for your boot drive."

Have a feeling that anybody that would afford the X79 would not bother with SRT (Not a lover of XRT myself).

A simular example was when the Z68 plateform came out, gigabyte initially did not offer ANY Z68 MB with a hdmi Header - There reason, if you are buying a Z68 (vs the H6x) you are going to put a dedicated GPU in and NOT use the iGPU - They found out that was a BIG mistake and corrected, But not before I bought a ASRock Ext 4.

 

[Oddball2012]

Other mobos with the X79 chipset support it, just not the Rampage IV extreme.

 

[Pinhedd]

Other mobos with the X79 chipset support it, just not the Rampage IV extreme.

No they don't. Native SSD caching is a function of the chipset which is out of the hands of the motherboard manufacturers. Some companies such as Asus have devised a software trick which implements SSD caching in a tricky and non-native way.

 

[Oddball2012]

No they don't. Native SSD caching is a function of the chipset which is out of the hands of the motherboard manufacturers. Some companies such as Asus have devised a software trick which implements SSD caching in a tricky and non-native way.

So if ASUS has developed a way to implement SSD caching on other X79 chipsets, why not on the Rampage IV extreme? I just want to SSD cache on it so that I have the reliability of the HDD with the speed of the SSD.

 

[Pinhedd]

So if ASUS has developed a way to implement SSD caching on other X79 chipsets, why not on the Rampage IV extreme? I just want to SSD cache on it so that I have the reliability of the HDD with the speed of the SSD.

The Rampage series is targeted purely at platform enthusiasts and as such they avoid tacking on bells and whistles that to most users will only be another point of failure.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Other mobos with the X79 chipset support it, just not the Rampage IV extreme.

No they don't. Native SSD caching is a function of the chipset which is out of the hands of the motherboard manufacturers. Some companies such as Asus have devised a software trick which implements SSD caching in a tricky and non-native way.

Politely (though it has been a while since this was originally posted): Your assertion is incorrect. So in case somebody finds this thread even after 2 years, here is the answer:

While the full suite of chipset features are obviously out of the hands of motherboard manufacturers, they are free to enable/disable the available features in the BIOS for the board. In fact it is extremely common for motherboards to specifically NOT offer all features available in the chipset - for many different reasons.

It is technically possible for Asus to produce a motherboard with the X79 or X99 chipset and not make the RAID features or Smart Response Technology (SRT) available to users.

Reasons to expose less features to users than available in the chipset include:
- Thermal profile / heat dissapation design
- Number of ports (for example SATA ports)
- Product differentiation
- Licensing of features (certain features may require added payment)

In the case of the Rampage IV Extreme, the chipset does indeed include "SSD caching supprt" (ie Intel SRT). It is a case of testing if the latest BIOS updates from Asus (including the onboard RAID controller) and the latest frivers from Intel will allow you to enable SRT.

Note that enabling SRT requires you to define your mechanical drive as a RAID array. Also note that no more than 64 GB will be utilized for caching. Any remaining SSD storage will not be used for SRT.

The procedure should be the following:

1.) Enable RAID in the BIOS
2.) Define a RAID 0 array with your mechanical drive. Set the stripe size to its smallest available block size.
3.) Do not define the SSD as any array
4.) Install the OS on the RAID 0 array
5.) Install "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" software and drivers from Intel, and reboot your machine
6.) Open the RST software, and see if you have a section called "Accelerate". If not, you're out of luck! :-(
7.) Click the "Enable acceleration" link
8.) You should now have SRT enabled on your mehcanical drive.

Best regards

- Jesper