yes it will..I just answered my own question after I set this up myself. Thanks alot...I'm happy with my new build ; )
You and a few others raise some questions in my mind even with the answers which you happily discovered.
My rig as it pertains to ISRT caching should be in previous posts to this thread.
Just as you suggest, it is possible for the cache to become corrupted. And just as you say -- you can unhinge the cache from the acceleration feature. You can unhinge it and still maintain a formatted partition that uses the remainder of the SSD.
You can "re-hinge" the existing SSD cache to HDD acceleration. Or -- you can back up the formatted SSD partition, select "Make Available" for the SSD under the IRST software, recreate the cache, recreate the formatted partition, and restore the files.
If you want to keep the formatted partition "invisible" without a drive letter, you can store files on it by making it "mountable" in an empty folder of a hard drive -- specifically, the HDD that is being accelerated by the cache volume on the SSD. This shouldn't cause any foulups with either HDD defrag operations; nor are you caching data coming off the SSD formatted partition.
Even so, I've discovered problems that develop under certain scenarios -- which seem to require the "Make [SSD] Available" operation to re-initialize a cache:
1) Large software installations from DVD install discs -- occuring with the caching enabled
2) Any hard reset after the system freezes (for whatever reason that might be), or BSODs (for whatever reason that is not necessarily related to the ISRT caching)
So I've had to "Make Available" the SSD after backing up the SSD's formatted partition to completely reinitialize the cache about once every week to two weeks.
The difficulties that arise with ISRT are similar to descriptions of posters at other forums pertaining to "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" issues with RAID arrays. The system slows down; applications seem to freeze temporarily -- with the system itself becoming temporarily unresponsive; the HDD activity LED seems to stay lit for some period of time before these freezes disappear. These symptoms can also lead to actions that might worsen the problem: the user might not expect the system to recover from the freezes and unresponsiveness, he might then make a hard reset to the system or an unmanaged power-down, which could then exascerbate the problems.
These similarities between what I've seen under ISRT (with "IRST" software) and reported problems with RAID under "IRST" also seem to be accompanied by red "bang-node" error messages in the Windows System Event Log pertaining to "iastor" -- the Intel disk-controller driver. They may show up as "did not respond within the time-out period."
So far, as of the last few days of my experience with this, re-initializing the cache after selecting "Make Available" in IRST solves the problem: the iastor bang nodes stop appearing after reboot; there are no freezes; no unresponsiveness. But this does not preclude the situation from developing later.
If you choose to use the computer for doing HTPC duty with a tuner-capture card, I cannot say at this time how that may complicate things, but I anticipated that you don't want video buffer files and captured video files (DVR-MS and MPG) running through that cache, so it might be important to configure Media Center to buffer and write to a different hard disk that isn't cached.
I felt compelled to revisit this thread with these remarks because I only suspect there are some bugs yet to be ironed out of "Smart Response Technology" with the introduction of the Z68 chipset, even as Intel had been working on this innovation for some few years or longer prior to its initial release with Z68.
Since the performance of HDD-acceleration is really quite a significant improvement over HDD standalone performance, one would hope that the extra maintenance, troubleshooting and frustrations can eventually be eliminated . . . by Intel. And perhaps I should post these remarks at the Intel forums as well.
EDIT [five minutes later]: An important thought per whatever bugs I observed or imagined: At least in "Enhanced Mode," it seems that corrupted cache problems [as I imagine them to be] do not seem to put the HDD and its contents at risk. Once you unhinge caching after problem scenarios such as those I've described or suggested, the performance of the OS and software returns to normal with "standalone" HDD configuration. But that should be a caution per use of "Maximized Mode," insofar as the latter opens up a scenario of HDD corruption or "lost data" as result of the hard reset or irregular system reboot users may precipitate once the problems start to develop.
Also -- and I say this tentatively based on remedies suggested by those complaining of similar symptoms with "Rapid Storage Tech" software and conventional RAID -- you might want to enter your Windows 7 "Power Management" screens under "Control Panel" and under "Advanced Settings" and "PCI Express" -- turn off "Link State Power Management."