New Add-On Card Makes SSD Caching More Accessible

[btarunr]

While using a low-capacity SSD to cache a hard drive has shown in some cases to be the next best thing to owning a large SSD as the proper primary drive, SSD caching is limited by the availability of the right technology. On the one hand, you have Intel offering it with its Smart Response Technology, on the other you have special storage enclosures such as HDDBoost from SilverStone. Smart Response Tech for now is limited to socket LGA1155 platform, and in it, Z68 Express chipset-based motherboards. In Japan, a new add-on card design has surfaced, by a company called Kuroutoshikou, which lets you use an mSATA SSD to cache a SATA hard drive, and its installation is claimed to be fairly straightforward.

The PCI-Express 2.0 x1 add-on card pictured below, makes use of a new Marvell-made 2-port SATA 6 Gb/s controller. One of its two ports is wired to an mSATA, the other to a standard SATA port. The SATA controller in this card features Marvell's HyperDuo technology, which works similar to Intel's Smart Response Technology, and installation is almost plug-and-install-driver. The card uses a half-height PCB, and packs a low-profile expansion bracket cover, if your SFF case demands it. Pretty much any make of mSATA SSD and SATA hard drives can be used. This addon card is priced in Japan for 3,980 Yen, which is about US $50.3, a $20 premium over some of the cheapest 2-port SATA 6 Gb/s cards are around that price range. It's possible that peripheral specialists of the likes of Rosewill, Siig, Syba, etc., might market such cards Stateside in the future.



Source: VR-Zone

[Cheeseball]

Kuroutoshikou is not a new company, in fact my GTX 560 is made by them. They're all still made in Taiwan/China though.

Well pimp my drive. I was just thinking about trying to span a dynamic volume between an SSD and a hard drive. It's probably a stupid idea if you just left it there, but I'd read somewhere that you can segregate data to one or the other disk in a volume based on certain criteria. I was just on technet net seeing if I could get anything more specific.

Anyway, sounds like a great idea at a pretty decent price. Wish there was some sort of ETA so I could put it on my calendar. There's no chance I'll remember otherwise.

[Athlonite]

No chance of using this in conjunction with an 2xHDD Raid0 volume then I see as that would require 3 ports not 2 ohwell looks like I'll need to wait some more for the prices of SSD's to go down some more before I think about replacing my HDD Raid0 array

[TheLostSwede]

You could use a port multiplier that should do the trick

[Thefumigator]

or using software raid, dynamic discs in windows, they work pretty fast in my own experience. But not as fast as a hardware raid.

[Athlonite]

Originally Posted by Thefumigator

or using software raid, dynamic discs in windows, they work pretty fast in my own experience. But not as fast as a hardware raid.

yeah I'd like a proper RAID card with a DDR ram cache but they're as expensive as an SSD here