VPN: RL-HDDBOOST
Product ReviewsSilverstone RL-HDDBOOST Hard Drive SSD Booster - Uses SSD AS Cache to Improve HDD Drive Performance
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With 3 User Reviews
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 Rating: Review Date: 02/10/12  |
Cons: limited to 211MB/s read / 99MB/s write
Pros: Helps increase speed. does not impact read speeds and latency. Fast Sync. Easy to use. No utility or driver needed. |
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Rating: Review Date: 01/10/12 |
Cons: None
Pros: Works as advertised! Comment:
Simple to install and works great for people not using a Z68 board and wants SSD Caching. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/19/11 |
Cons:
SSD formating
Pros: Easy as it can get Comment:
Genuine SSD do not come formated. It's a bizarre twist.It is showing in the BIOS but not in Win7 explorer. Force Win7 to see it with :C:WindowsSystem32diskmgmt.msc... then you can format it and go on with the installation in the HDDbooster. Work as advertised. Simple , fast and elegant solution. |
I have tested this device with a few different flash (Intel 320 1280B and OCZ Octane 128GB) and both have similar results.Read speeds seems to be maxed at 211MB/s it does not matter what SSD I used. Also, for some reason write speed is limited to 99MB/s for the SSD size portion of the Hard Drive. I have tested HDDboost without an SSD, and performace is very similar to what the HDD performs like. Velociraptor 125MB/s read/write. SO I know write is capable of more then 100MB/s but write is limited to 99MB/s when an SSD is present. I guess the controller chip on the HDDBoost is writing 2x as much date on both drives at once, hence the limitation or extra processing is involved.I found its sync fast, 20-30mins for 128GB, and no no need to do anyhting. Utility is only used to monitor. THere is start/stop to monitor in real time.You must upgrade the firmware for it to reconize newer SSDs.I am amazed that it syncs data without the computer. Meaning it must not be using software raid, which is gread.THese can be used in raid environments.Now about the write limitatio at 99MB/s when an SSD is present. THis means that everytime data is written, data is wrote to both SSD and HDD at once. and from what i know, data was only to be send to the HDD during a write, to help increase SSD life, and a dirty flag is set for that sector etc. But this seems to be not the case. With older SSDs write would be limited to 50MB/s but now that all SSDs are faster write is maxed out ad 99MB/s even when SSD are capable of 150MB/s at 128GB.Random read performace increased, and so does read latency/access time. The only thing that is does not help is write access time/latency, and also random write, as both are limited to the write speed of the ssd or hard drive whatever is lower.What is neat, even though I rebooted my pc, the SSD and HDD stayed in sync all times. so Sync is not needed, and not a problem. also Sync runs in thw background when the system boots up. so it doesnt hurt performance much. THe sync is smart.Now what I think is needed: Trim Support, NCQ. It would be nice if the HDDboost had some cache to help random writes.I ahve found I can hotplug in a SSD while the system is on, and sync starts automatically. But do not try to remove an SSD while its on, and it could be trying to write data !