Using HDD as STORAGE and SSD For Gaming

[Danthemang]

As title says, is there anyway I could use my HDD as Storage for my games and use the SSD to run the games ?

 

[Coup27]

As in Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT)? It's a platform available since Z68 where a small SSD automatically caches the most commonly accessed files from your HDD to increase their access times. Once you're bored of that game and begin loading a different one, SRT detects this and moves the previous game out of the cache and loads in the one you are now playing.

It doesn't just work for games, the SSD cache will load in the most frequent files you access to the size of the cache.

 

[Moonrise]

Huh, well how about that? I have to admit, I wish I paid more attention to these things because that is a nice little tool. I always assumed you had to actually have the software on the SSD to take advantage of it, though in hindsight it does make sense that such a technology would be available (caching frequently used programs to the SSD). I think I'll have to do that once I get the Samsung 840 EVO. Sounds like a great use for it to be sure.

 

[Red Squirrel]

SSDs are just like hard drives, but faster. as far as the system is concerned. You can mix SSDs and HDDs no problem in a system. Connect the SSD to the first port (usually 0) and HDD on the next one, so SSD shows up as primary and install the OS on it and use the HDD for your data. You don't HAVE to do it that way but I like to.

 

[Danthemang]

Does it work with Intel stuff or AMD as well ?

 

[Danthemang]

SSDs are just like hard drives, but faster. as far as the system is concerned. You can mix SSDs and HDDs no problem in a system. Connect the SSD to the first port (usually 0) and HDD on the next one, so SSD shows up as primary and install the OS on it and use the HDD for your data. You don't HAVE to do it that way but I like to.

I tried running and installing the game the way you did, as well of just installing it into my SSD, and I saw the difference.

 

[Danthemang]

As in Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT)? It's a platform available since Z68 where a small SSD automatically caches the most commonly accessed files from your HDD to increase their access times. Once you're bored of that game and begin loading a different one, SRT detects this and moves the previous game out of the cache and loads in the one you are now playing.

It doesn't just work for games, the SSD cache will load in the most frequent files you access to the size of the cache.

I am under AMD specs, can you link me the download page for the program ?

 

[Coup27]

SRT is an Intel technology for Intel platforms. It is not a software program as such, the features are built into Rapid Storage Technology which is the storage driver for the chipset. You will have to look into whether AMD have an equivalent technology. There are software based solutions though (FancyCache?) but I don't know how good they are.

 

[kmmatney]

For AMD, I think the only thing similar to Intel SRT is FancyCache. It works in a similar manner - you set aside part of an SSD to be used as a cache, and then it automatically starts putting most frequently used files there. So for games, it should start putting the files most used on the cache. However last time I tried FancyCache, it lost all it's cache everytime you restarted.

Edit: It now looks like the cache is persistent, and they've changed the name of the product to "PrimoCache":

http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-cache/download.html

It looks like they've made several improvements, so worth a shot.

FYI - Both of my son's have hybrid hard drives (Seagate XT Momentus) with built-in SSD cache, and they seem to work pretty well for gaming, even with the small 4GB of cache.

 

[TimberSaw]

Why do you even want to use the SSD for games? The load times hardly increase, they actually depend on your CPU more than your storage drive since it spends most of the time decompressing files. Trust me, I know, I own an SSD.

Secondly, isn't using an SSD as a cache drive for the HDD harmful in that it writes the whole game to the SSD when you run it, and then deletes it when it detects you stopped playing it, then rewrites when you decide to play it again, resulting in huge write cycles? It would make much more sense to just use the SSD as a regular drive.

 

[Mushkins]

Why do you even want to use the SSD for games? The load times hardly increase, they actually depend on your CPU more than your storage drive since it spends most of the time decompressing files. Trust me, I know, I own an SSD.

Secondly, isn't using an SSD as a cache drive for the HDD harmful in that it writes the whole game to the SSD when you run it, and then deletes it when it detects you stopped playing it, then rewrites when you decide to play it again, resulting in huge write cycles? It would make much more sense to just use the SSD as a regular drive.

Thats some... signature worthy stuff right there.

Obviously it depends on the game and *what* it's loading from the HDD and when, but an SSD for loading games and apps is considerably and noticeably faster than even the fastest HDDs on the market. Decompression has little to do with it in most cases, it's all about reading the files and reading them as fast as possible.

And when its acting as a cache it doesn't just arbitrarily wipe the cache as soon as you're done playing, that would entirely defeat the purpose of a cache. It keeps it in there assuming you're going to use it again before other things, and starts replacing whats in there with other things as needed if its full. Yes using an SSD as a cache theoretically reduces the lifespan of the drive, but in practicality not by any seriously meaningful amount. It's no more damaging than having your OS temp files on the SSD.

 

[Coup27]

Trust me, I know, I own an SSD.

OMG, wow! What are they like? I really wish I could own an SSD.

 

[TimberSaw]

Thats some... signature worthy stuff right there.

Obviously it depends on the game and *what* it's loading from the HDD and when, but an SSD for loading games and apps is considerably and noticeably faster than even the fastest HDDs on the market. Decompression has little to do with it in most cases, it's all about reading the files and reading them as fast as possible.

And when its acting as a cache it doesn't just arbitrarily wipe the cache as soon as you're done playing, that would entirely defeat the purpose of a cache. It keeps it in there assuming you're going to use it again before other things, and starts replacing whats in there with other things as needed if its full. Yes using an SSD as a cache theoretically reduces the lifespan of the drive, but in practicality not by any seriously meaningful amount. It's no more damaging than having your OS temp files on the SSD.

Have you ever tested an SSD's load times to back your claims? I have. Maybe for whatever apps you're using the speed up is huge, but for the vast majority of games the difference in load times between the SSD and HDD doesn't even closely reflect their difference in synthetic benchmarks. That said, a few games do benefit greatly, like Battlefield 3.

And using it as a cache on anything but the smallest SSD puts needless strain on it and has no benefit.

PS: Do you usually start your posts with snide remarks?

 

[TimberSaw]

OMG, wow! What are they like? I really wish I could own an SSD.

This is my problem when discussing SSD's, people who don't game but act like an authority on gaming with SSDs.

 

[Coup27]

This is my problem when discussing SSD's, people who don't game but act like an authority on gaming with SSDs.

Read any of my posts in this thread and tell me where I've acted as an authority on gaming with an SSD? The OP asked if there was a way of using a HDD and an SSD together and I answered that question. You're the one using statements such as "Trust me, I know, I own an SSD" like SSD's are still premium items costing thousands. I would say that over half the regular users of this forum use an SSD.

Mushkins did a good job of debunking your post. Nobody has ever said that an SSD will improve your gaming experience because it won't, but what it will do is decrease game load times in the majority of cases.

 

[TimberSaw]

Read any of my posts in this thread and tell me where I've acted as an authority on gaming with an SSD? The OP asked if there was a way of using a HDD and an SSD together and I answered that question. You're the one using statements such as "Trust me, I know, I own an SSD" like SSD's are still premium items costing thousands. I would say that over half the regular users of this forum use an SSD.

Mushkins did a good job of debunking your post. Nobody has ever said that an SSD will improve your gaming experience because it won't, but what it will do is decrease game load times in the majority of cases.

I don't know how the heck you read into posts so much, so simply saying "Trust me, I own an SSD" to say I have experience with SSDs means I'm claiming that "SSD's are still premium items costing thousands"?

Secondly what part of my post was debunked? I claimed that the load times in games is dependent on the CPU more than the storage drive, which is why the average improvement in those load times is not significantly high, and I get a response "SSDs are uber fast".

 

[Coup27]

Your comment Trust me, I know, I own an SSD implies that you are a rare breed of people that own an SSD and have a specific knowledge of an SSD and it's behaviour. Most of the people in this forum own an SSD and post based on the information they've read, or from first hand experiences of their SSD's and nobody else feels the need to prefix their advice with such a statement.

Your entire post was debunked. SSD caching profiles what you use the most often and loads it into the cache. As Anandtech has proved many many times, NAND endurance is a myth for normal consumers so preloading games into a cache and evicting them is not going to wear out the SSD before you decide to retire or sell the system anyway. What it will do is provide a substantial speed improvement over what a HDD could provide for the most commonly accessed 40GB (example) of your data, whether this be programs or games.

 

[TimberSaw]

Your comment Trust me, I know, I own an SSD implies that you are a rare breed of people that own an SSD and have a specific knowledge of an SSD and it's behaviour. Most of the people in this forum own an SSD and post based on the information they've read, or from first hand experiences of their SSD's and nobody else feels the need to prefix their advice with such a statement.

Your entire post was debunked. SSD caching profiles what you use the most often and loads it into the cache. As Anandtech has proved many many times, NAND endurance is a myth for normal consumers so preloading games into a cache and evicting them is not going to wear out the SSD before you decide to retire or sell the system anyway. What it will do is provide a substantial speed improvement over what a HDD could provide for the most commonly accessed 40GB (example) of your data, whether this be programs or games.

No it implies I'm speaking from personal experience. Again, you read too much into things.

And NAND endurance is a myth... well that's news to me. I guess I can now write to my heart's content.

 

[Coup27]

And NAND endurance is a myth... well that's news to me. I guess I can now write to my heart's content.

As Anandtech has proved many many times, NAND endurance is a myth for normal consumers so preloading games into a cache and evicting them is not going to wear out the SSD before you decide to retire or sell the system anyway.

I'm done debating this with you. You have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[TimberSaw]

I'm done debating this with you. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Whatever makes you happy.

 

[Zap]

You guys need to take this to some real-time chat or something. Wow. Srsly.

Let me address some of the things you two have been saying.

NAND endurance is a myth for normal consumers

It is and it isn't.

NAND endurance does exist. However, for "normal consumers" it is one of those things that worrying greatly about it is akin to worrying that your hair will eventually turn grey, or that capacitors in your computer are aging. Basically, for most "normal consumers" it is a non-issue in that by the time NAND ages enough (under "normal" desktop usage) to be rendered inoperable, a HDD used the same amount may have worn out due to being a mechanical device with moving parts. But we don't see legions of partially informed users in forums proclaiming, "stop buying unreliable HDDs because they WILL WEAR OUT AND YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DATA." Yes, that statement is true, but not worth worrying about. Note that many SSDs in the past have died prematurely, but 99.9999999% of the time it wasn't due to NAND wearing out. My "pull out of arse" numbers put controller/firmware failure (or bad design, or beta/not fully tested, etc.) as responsible for probably 95-98% of the failures, and the remaining 2-5% is probably just normal failure rates that happen to all consumer electronics.

SSDs are uber fast

It is and it isn't.

Overall speed that a user experiences while sitting at a computer and doing whatever they normally do on a computer will depend on a number of factors. Can an SSD be one of those factors? Yes. So can RAM. So can user expectations. Or internet congestion that particular day. What is the fastest single GPU graphics card on the market? A GeForce GTX 780 (on average, not counting Titan). However, I can make it perform slower than a Radeon 7970 by sticking it in an old Core 2 Duo system with 2GB DDR2-533 RAM, while using the Radeon 7970 in a modern overclocked Haswell Core i7 with 16GB DDR3-2400 RAM.

An SSD comes down to your budget. Are you trying to make a gaming rig for $600? Well son, an SSD is not in your (near) future. Are you trying to make a gaming rig for $6000? It would be STUPID to not consider an SSD (or several) after you get multiple high end graphics cards, aftermarket cooling, crazy expensive 80Plus Platinum PSU, highest end CPU and motherboard, and fastest overclocked RAM that 2" tall heatspreaders happily grace.

So you guys are kind of both right. High-five your monitor and call it a day.