Which Drive Rapid Mode?

[MoInSTL]

I have a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB. Just ordered a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB. Only one drive can use Rapid Mode. Should I enable it on my new drive which will be the OS drive or boost the speed of the 840 which will be a mix of music and apps that I don't want on the main drive but still use.

 

[coercitiv]

I have a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB. Just ordered a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB. Only one drive can use Rapid Mode. Should I enable it on my new drive which will be the OS drive or boost the speed of the 840 which will be a mix of music and apps that I don't want on the main drive but still use.

Things you should keep in mind before enabling RAPID :

1. slows down boot speed (not by much)
2. may negatively affect browsing experience (or simply not help, but depends on browser and cache settings)
3. needs free resources to do it's job properly (CPU time, memory)

If you have a quad core with 8GB+ of RAM and use some disk intensive applications, enable it for your OS drive. Otherwise enjoy your natively faster disk and leave caching for those who need it.

I have used my PC with&without RAPID on both 840 PRO and 850 PRO for a while. Results have varied from a nice boost when working with big files (Photoshop, up to 1-2GB files plus lots of scratch disk activity) to nothing to write home about when just browsing and playing games. (did not see improvements in Diablo 3 for example, even though 840 PRO is currently on a SATA 3 port and bandwidth limitation meant some caching would have helped).

 

[MongGrel]

Long story short, don't bother.

Least I haven't in awhile here.

 

[Berryracer]

If you turn on CRAPID mode, you are not benchmarking your SSD anymore, you are benchmarking your RAM.

Translate that intro real world performance and it means absolutely nothing.

For example, test this.....

Copy a huge 10GB + video file or whatever large file you want from your C: partition to another partition on another disk......

you will notice that the Windows file copy progress finishes insanely fast.....the moment it finishes the copy, I want you to restart your system

then check that file you copied, it would be corrupt, reason is, yes the file copy progress finished fast, but it didn't finish really, all it was doing is copying the file from your SSD to the RAM Cache and not the actual 2nd SSD or HDD you were intending to copy to, then after it goes to your RAM Cache using CRAPID, it is supposed to copy from the RAM Cache onto the actual disk in the background which didn't happen in this test I did since I restart immediately after the fake file transfer progress was finished.

so it's just cheating + placebo effect

And after you read this, you will never enable RAPID again.....it will actually make your performance worse not better

A Closer look at the crappy CRAPID

 

[MoInSTL]

If you have a quad core with 8GB+ of RAM and use some disk intensive applications, enable it for your OS drive.

Heh, my 16GB of DDR4 RAM runs in quad mode. I was inclined to try it without it, then enable it on the 850..

Btw, I liked your post somewhere here about Performance Optimization. I've been so busy with work, big home improvement projects and building a new PC I missed it before. It was a helpful tip.

 

[MoInSTL]

If you turn on CRAPID mode

Your crusade or vendetta or whatever it is was, IMO was presented in such a way that your bias negated your point.

"If, however, you want to get PCIe-like SSD speeds without shelling out the money for a PCIe SSD, Samsung's RAPID is the closest you'll get".
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/...w-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested/5

I don't really care. It's not a big deal and I was merely asking a casual question. But my point is that there are reviews that have pros and cons and links to support both camps. I happen to trust the reviews from Anand a bit more. And, I've never encountered file corruption.

 

[Berryracer]

Your crusade or vendetta or whatever it is was, IMO was presented in such a way that your bias negated your point.

"If, however, you want to get PCIe-like SSD speeds without shelling out the money for a PCIe SSD, Samsung's RAPID is the closest you'll get".
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/...w-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested/5

I don't really care. It's not a big deal and I was merely asking a casual question. But my point is that there are reviews that have pros and cons and links to support both camps. I happen to trust the reviews from Anand a bit more. And, I've never encountered file corruption.

The only difference is, with PCEi you really get the speed you're seeing in the windows copy/progress bar or what not. When a file copy is finished it is actually finished. Unlike with CRAPID, it makes you think like it's finished, but then it starts copying from the RAM back to the actual destination. Pure placebo

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It depends on whether you have write-caching enabled.

And if you have write-caching enabled, the problem discussed with the "10MB-file" test could emerge. Except that -- if you have 10-second flushing of the cache, you wouldn't have to wait for the entire file to write to HDD; there'd only be some of it unwritten over X 10-sec intervals to the point where you hurriedly rebooted or reset your system.

And -- if you have write-caching enabled, there will be greater risk of file corruption if such writes are taking place when and if the system crashes.

It may improve 4K read rates somewhat; it will seem that the 4K write-rate will improve if write-caching is enabled.

I've had something similar to RAPID in a laptop with an SATA-II controller and extra memory. It definitely helps a bit with certain applications and files.

I really think you get more by SSD-caching for an accelerated HDD than you get from caching an SSD to RAM.

Put it another way. If it's stable, dependable and doesn't ultimately slow anything down, the only "serious" reason to avoid using it would be in the waste of RAM and some sort of degraded performance in situations where it might count for something. In the case of the RAM, I've got enough extra that it's better than not using it at all; and in the case of failure or degraded performance, I've never seen anything like that.