AMD's StoreMI V2 Updates Support, 400-Series AMD Chipsets Added

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StoreMI V2 Is Now Available For X470 and B450

AMD StoreeMI
(Image credit: AMD)

AMD just updated its new StoreMI V2 to support AMD's 400 series chipsets like the X470 and B450 platforms. AMD initially only supported the updated version of the storage software on the more expensive X570 platform, but promised to expand support to older platforms throughout the course of the year. Now the company is delivering on its promise to bring StoreMI V2 to less expensive 400-series platforms. The software is free, which is especially helpful for budget PC builders that usually have B450 boards and run small SSDs + HDD combos, which is where StoreMI comes in handy the most.

StoreMi Interface

(Image credit: AMD)

StoreMI is a storage tiering solution that allows you to merge your SSD and HDD (or slower SSD with faster SSD) into one virtual drive. StoreMI moves data between both storage solutions, so it analyzes your data and moves frequently-used data to the faster SSD. In effect, the technique merges the capacity and pricing advantages of HDDs with the speed of the SSDs. That results in faster overall system performance, like snappier game and application loading.

AMD's original StoreMI software had a few issues. Most notably, it was a tiered solution, meaning it transferred data from the slow SSD/HDD to the faster SSD storage, but didn't keep a copy of the data on both drives. This has the advantage of making the full storage capacity from both drives usable, but if StoreMI's virtual partition ever glitched out or died, you would lose all the data stored on the faster drive. 

StoreMI V2 addresses the problem by moving to a caching system, which copies all data from the slower drive to the faster drive. That means there are two copies of any data held in the SSD. This lowers your storage capacity for the StoreMI volume to the size of the slower drive, however this solution is far safer because it's bulletproof if your StoreMI virtual partition gets corrupted – you will still have a copy of the data on the slower drive.

You can download the new StoreMI V2 Tech here. It is available for all 400 series, 500 series, X399 and TRX40 AMD platforms.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • R_1
    Fancycache has allowed me to do this and more for years. Fancycache allows me to have a RAM cache for my SSD and an SSD as a cache for ALL my hard drives. Nvelo Dataplex allowed me to pair my SSD and HDD 10 years ago. way late to the party here AMD.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    "StoreMI V2 addresses the problem by moving to a caching system, which copies all data from the slower drive to the faster drive. That means there are two copies of any data held in the SSD. This lowers your storage capacity for the StoreMI volume to the size of the slower drive, however this solution is far safer because it's bulletproof if your StoreMI virtual partition gets corrupted – you will still have a copy of the data on the slower drive. "


    Oh good grief.
    Just go all SSD, and institute a real backup plan.
    Reply
  • techgeek
    USAFRet said:
    "StoreMI V2 addresses the problem by moving to a caching system, which copies all data from the slower drive to the faster drive. That means there are two copies of any data held in the SSD. This lowers your storage capacity for the StoreMI volume to the size of the slower drive, however this solution is far safer because it's bulletproof if your StoreMI virtual partition gets corrupted – you will still have a copy of the data on the slower drive. "


    Oh good grief.
    Just go all SSD, and institute a real backup plan.

    Actually I've used it and it works quite well. I already had a 500GB nvme main boot SSD (Samsung 970 EVO Plus), and a 4TB drive to keep all my data and games on. I added a 1TB WD Black nvme SSD and used it as a caching drive with StormMi. It took awhile to cache and thus far it's only used 22% of the caching drive. This is probably since lately I've only been playing Doom Eternal and occasionally Killing Floor 2, so it hasn't had much of a varied scope of file access. However Doom Eternal loads everything much faster since activating StoreMi.

    While I'd love to go purely SSD, it's not always financially feasible. As for a real backup, whether you are using a caching software or not, you definitely need a backup plan. The idea behind this version of StoreMi is that the cached data on the SSD is only a copy, the data is still on the HDD so if for some reason the SSD fails or becomes disconnected, your data is still intact.

    I applaud AMD for this software. First off it's free, second off there aren't any artificial limitations on either the HDD or SSD size (Intel I'm looking at you), and lastly it does exactly what it says and performs exactly as they've stated.
    Reply
  • RodroX
    USAFRet said:
    "StoreMI V2 addresses the problem by moving to a caching system, which copies all data from the slower drive to the faster drive. That means there are two copies of any data held in the SSD. This lowers your storage capacity for the StoreMI volume to the size of the slower drive, however this solution is far safer because it's bulletproof if your StoreMI virtual partition gets corrupted – you will still have a copy of the data on the slower drive. "


    Oh good grief.
    Just go all SSD, and institute a real backup plan.

    Sadly not everyone in the world can buy SSD.
    I recently did a remote fixing on someones PC and I was shocked. This person was still using an AMD Sempron and had an old 14" CRT monitor, yes CRT. It was a gaming PC, with a Radeon HD 4550 (512MB) and this person just could not buy a flat panel yet, still he enjoyed gaming like everyone else, even with such a modest/oldest/lacking system.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    RodroX said:
    Sadly not everyone in the world can buy SSD.
    I recently did a remote fixing on someones PC and I was shocked. This person was still using an AMD Sempron and had an old 14" CRT monitor, yes CRT. It was a gaming PC, with a Radeon HD 4550 (512MB) and this person just could not buy a flat panel yet, still he enjoyed gaming like everyone else, even with such a modest/oldest/lacking system.
    Oh, I agree.
    But the price delta between spinning drives and SSD is getting smaller every day.
    1TB HDD for $50, or 1TB SSD for $85.

    If one is using an SSD to pair with a spinning drive...get a larger SSD.
    Reply
  • RodroX
    USAFRet said:
    Oh, I agree.
    But the price delta between spinning drives and SSD is getting smaller every day.
    1TB HDD for $50, or 1TB SSD for $85.

    If one is using an SSD to pair with a spinning drive...get a larger SSD.

    Yes it is finally, and its very true for US, Canada, some countries in Europe, Japan, etc, but sadly for South America tech parts prices are all over the place (we are really slowly starting to see some price adjustments in the storage deparments).
    It sucks everytime I search for parts in my country (Argentina) to find out prices are double or even more than double than what you pay in the US, and thats for the few things you can get here.
    Also forget about fancy brands like Samsung, Lian Li, Noctua and BeQuiet (among others) and forget about most PC accesories and trinkets, you can get the basic stuff only (mobo, cpu, ram, storage, gpu, psu, case and if you are lucky a decent cooler) and thats it.

    At least we have a decent internet conection now and we can read and watch and keep us up to date to whats going on in the IT world.
    Reply
  • Mr.Mack
    StoreMI V2 will flag you that it cannot cache a SATA SSD and HD. The SSD must be NVME. I could be wrong, but Fuzedrive which StoreMI is based on does not have this limitation?
    Reply
  • techgeek
    Mr.Mack said:
    StoreMI V2 will flag you that it cannot cache a SATA SSD and HD. The SSD must be NVME. I could be wrong, but Fuzedrive which StoreMI is based on does not have this limitation?

    This is right out of the Release Notes:

    At least one unformatted, uninitialized, unallocated SATA or NVMe SSD for storage acceleration.
    So it doesn't require the SSD to be NVME, though in my case that is what I'm using.
    Reply
  • Mr.Mack
    This is the error I get when I install StoreMI V2. BTW, StoreMI is being installed to a MSI Tomahawk B450 motherboard with a SATA SSD and HD installed. Clearly the error indicates the StoreMI software does not support this configuration and NVME SSD is required.


    Reply