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SilverStone HDDBOOST - any experience?

Last response: in Storage
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While browsing I came across the SilverStone HDDBOOST:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=245

Basically an interface that caches the most used files of a classic HDD in an SSD for faster load times. Writing still occurs to the HDD drive and syncing occurs on every power-on (boot) which is supposed to extend the SSD's life.

The installation is idiotproof and needs no extra steps for the mirroring, it is literally plug and play.

Obviously it won't be as fast as a true SSD of sufficient capacity but the way I see it, it is a nice idea/alternative to a 2nd SSD for your apps, or an alternative to getting a 256-512GB SSD to house both.

Right now, money-wise, 120-128GB is the sweet spot for SSDs and while adequate for most, there are those of us that have about 200GB+ worth of apps/games and, usually, in a 2nd HDD drive, separate from the boot drive.

The system costs about 30€ and only needs a 30GB SSD to work although a 64GB might be more worth it for the small difference nowadays (at about 60-70€, bringing the total to 100€).

Do any of you have any experience with these and to all, would it be worth it as a means to speed up those long Batman Arkham City or M&M Heroes VI boot times?

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So kinda like intel smart response but not limited to z68 or new ivy bridge system.
Not sure performance would be similar but underlying tech should be the similar apart from which data is loaded onto SSD, I think intel's version selectively load what you use the most where as silverstone only loads whatever file is first on your HDD (which makes it pointless cause you could just get a SSD and use your file out of it unless you want to extend your SSD life).


This is the bench for smart response.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-sm...

Well, details are a little sketchy but no, they say that when it first mirrors the HDD it loads the front-end data (which I'm assuming it is a way to refer to the most recently modified files) but it refreshes the SSDs contents upon each reboot.

Now I could be wrong but I can only assume that upon each reboot it reassesses which data to keep on the SSD and leave the rest just on the HDD.

Good part is that it doesn't affect the HDD at all and should you want to revert to the HDD alone it's as simple as unplugging the SATA cable from the hddboost and putting it back on the MoBo connector.

I must say that I am intrigued. My motherboard which is a X58 cost me about 300€ so upgrading it in the foreseeable future is def. out of the question...

First things first though, I strongly feel this is meant to be either a cheaper solution for older (pre-SATA 6GB/s) systems or as secondary drive. Or, a good cheap alternative to OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid PCI-e SSD which is great, superfast, 1TB of HDD plus 100GB of SSD but also crazy expensive (about 420-450€)...

Actually it mirrors the front in of the hdd. And it seems writes are made to the ssd. Also at bootup it starts to mirror the front end but its only a 1 time deal, unless it detected things are out of sync or if you unplugged/plugged in the sdd.

THe better hte SSD hooked up the better the read performance

I tried mine with the OCZ Octane. Just stay away from Asysc flash SSDs OCCZ Octane was good, better then the intel 320.
Async seems to slow down the HDDBoost because Async has crappy performance. The HDDboost performance seems to be capped and the octane take it as close as possible to this cap.

Now with flash so cheap, you could get a 128GB.

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