Intel SRT, is it worth it? how to set it up.

[15th Warlock]

Hi guys, I have a question about enabling Intel smart response technology for my main system.

I would enable this for the drive I use to store all my games. It's a 3TB WD Black drive, and I would couple it to a 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. My board is an Asus RVE based on the X99 chipset.

My question is: would it be beneficial to do this? I use this drive only for storing games, and I'm looking forward to see faster loading times for them.

Another question I have is: how do I go about this process? Do I need to format my drive, or do I just add the SSD under RAID and enable ISRT from the driver in windows to couple both drives?

I was planning to get and SSHD but since I have this SSD drive laying around, I thought I could sort of make my own SSHD volume.

Any thoughts or suggestion on this matter will be appreciated, thanks in advance for your input.

 

[newtekie1]

I use it on my storage/game volume with a 64GB OCZ SSD and I use it on my main OS RAID array for my work computer with a 32GB OCZ SSD. It doesn't make a huge difference, but if you have the drive laying around you might as well give it a go.

I do believe you are limited to only using 64GB of the SSD though.

Enabling it is easy. Just plug the SSD in, then it should be picked up by the Intel RST driver. You can then use the Intel RST interface in Windows to enable SRT using the SSD and tell it what drive you want the SSD to act as a cache. You can also select what mode SRT works in. Enhanced mode basically just accelerates reads from the drive, maximum mode accelerates reads and writes but has a chance of data loss if the machine powers off or crashes.

 

[nictgsf]

I think it's perfect for your setup. I run SRT with 2 Samsung spinpoint 1tb's in RAID combined with an old 120GB Intel 510 SSD for the same reason, games. Load times between that an my primary RAID of 2 840 EVO's is negligible after the cache recognises the game has been played a couple times.

Can be a bit fiddly to setup. Make sure there are no partitions on the SSD and then it should show up as an option to use for SRT in the Rapid Storage manager. As mentioned, it will only use 64gb at max. Use the the rest of the drive for virtual mem or as backup of crucial stuff. Whatever you want really.

Good luck

 

[15th Warlock]

I use it on my storage/game volume with a 64GB OCZ SSD and I use it on my main OS RAID array for my work computer with a 32GB OCZ SSD. It doesn't make a huge difference, but if you have the drive laying around you might as well give it a go.

I do believe you are limited to only using 64GB of the SSD though.

Enabling it is easy. Just plug the SSD in, then it should be picked up by the Intel RST driver. You can then use the Intel RST interface in Windows to enable SRT using the SSD and tell it what drive you want the SSD to act as a cache. You can also select what mode SRT works in. Enhanced mode basically just accelerates reads from the drive, maximum mode accelerates reads and writes but has a chance of data loss if the machine powers off or crashes.

Thank you newtekie! That's precisely the answer I was looking for.

So I'm limited to 64gbs then huh? And since load times is all I'm concerned about, might as well go for the safest alternative wont be writing much from that drive after a game is installed.

One more question, can the remaining 64GBs on my drive be partitioned as an extra drive? Maybe I'll install a game with long loading times like GTA V to it. I'm also expecting the witcher 3 to be another long ass loading game that would benefit from running off an SSD.

Once again, thank you for your help

 

[15th Warlock]

I think it's perfect for your setup. I run SRT with 2 Samsung spinpoint 1tb's in RAID combined with an old 120GB Intel 510 SSD for the same reason, games. Load times between that an my primary RAID of 2 840 EVO's is negligible after the cache recognises the game has been played a couple times.

Can be a bit fiddly to setup. Make sure there are no partitions on the SSD and then it should show up as an option to use for SRT in the Rapid Storage manager. As mentioned, it will only use 64gb at max. Use the the rest of the drive for virtual mem or as backup of crucial stuff. Whatever you want really.

Good luck

Thank you for your reply, you just answered my previous question while I was typing it! That's why I love this community, you guys rock!