Intel-Rapid Storage Technology

[cottonmouth]

what exactly does it mean when you enable acceleration for a SATA Hard Disk ?
what happens ?
what improvements would i see (if any) ?
is it advised to do this ?

i noticed this option a while ago to accelerate but never clicked it !!!

[rotNdude]

Intel explains it pretty well here.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/rapid-storage-technology.html

It's actually a set of things.

[Azza ☠]

As above, but to go into more detail about one area you would most likely want...

It can mean your motherboard supports 'Intel Smart Response', which allows for cache acceleration of a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) via SSD (Solid State Drive) to automatically copy over commonly used files/games to SSD performance and boost the overall performance feel.

To do this...

Purchase a small 64-128GB SSD drive - suggest a Samsung 840 PRO or similar for good life/performance/speed. Install to SATA. Cache drives only use up to 64GB max, but for best performance it should be a separate drive (don't share a partition with the boot). Note: It's always good for a SSD to have some free unused space. Samsung 840 PRO software offers the option to reserve extra free space to prolong it's life, which I recommend doing for a 128GB (setting 20GB or so to prolong). Don't create/format a partition on the SSD or assign a drive letter (it is required to be Unallocated space).

Under your BIOS, it must be set to 'RAID' mode.

Boot up your PC and ensure you have the latest 'Intel Rapid Storage Technology' software installed. If done correctly and available - a new 'Performance' tab appears (else it's completely hidden).

Double-click the RST icon, and in the resulting control panel click the Accelerate menu button; then select the SSD and specify how much storage space to dedicate to Smart Response Technology. Select the amount of cache you want (64GB max).

Select it to the HDD you want to acceleration.

Two modes are available: Enhanced and Maximized. Enhanced (safe) is essentially a write-through cache mode, with writes speeds limited by the hard drive's performance. Maximized (fast) mode acts as a write-back cache, an arrangement that yields optimum overall performance, because it involves caching writes and then writing them to the hard drive later.

'Maximized mode' is best performance.

The SSD's shorter access times and quicker transfers resulted in a much snappier and more responsive system than you'd get with a hard drive alone.

[cottonmouth]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von rotNdude:

Intel explains it pretty well here.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/rapid-storage-technology.html

It's actually a set of things.

thanks for that link

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Azza ☠:

As above, but to go into more detail about one area you would most likely want...

It can mean your motherboard supports 'Intel Smart Response', which allows for cache acceleration of a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) via SSD (Solid State Drive) to automatically copy over commonly used files/games to SSD performance and boost the overall performance feel.

To do this...

Purchase a small 64-128GB SSD drive - suggest a Samsung 840 PRO or similar for good life/performance/speed. Install to SATA. Cache drives only use up to 64GB max, but for best performance it should be a separate drive (don't share a partition with the boot). Note: It's always good for a SSD to have some free unused space. Samsung 840 PRO software offers the option to reserve extra free space to prolong it's life, which I recommend doing for a 128GB (setting 20GB or so to prolong). Don't create/format a partition on the SSD or assign a drive letter (it is required to be Unallocated space).

Under your BIOS, it must be set to 'RAID' mode.

Boot up your PC and ensure you have the latest 'Intel Rapid Storage Technology' software installed. If done correctly and available - a new 'Performance' tab appears (else it's completely hidden).

Double-click the RST icon, and in the resulting control panel click the Accelerate menu button; then select the SSD and specify how much storage space to dedicate to Smart Response Technology. Select the amount of cache you want (64GB max).

Select it to the HDD you want to acceleration.

Two modes are available: Enhanced and Maximized. Enhanced (safe) is essentially a write-through cache mode, with writes speeds limited by the hard drive's performance. Maximized (fast) mode acts as a write-back cache, an arrangement that yields optimum overall performance, because it involves caching writes and then writing them to the hard drive later.

'Maximized mode' is best performance.

The SSD's shorter access times and quicker transfers resulted in a much snappier and more responsive system than you'd get with a hard drive alone.

OK, first off, i only have a 30gb SSD atm, does that mean i shouldnt accelerate it ?
because u specified 64-128gb

[Azza ☠]

If your not already using the 30GB SSD for something else (and it's blank or your willing to remove/wipe all partitions/data on it), then by all means use it as cache on a larger HDD - this would actually be recommended so you can still enjoy it's performance on a much larger scale. 64GB is just the maximum amount of cache your allowed to go up to, I also personally like to leave a little head space to keep performance and prolong it's life. 30GB will still work fine - you might wish to make the cache size around ~28GB.

[cottonmouth]

ok ,how do i check what exactly my SSD is being used for ?

[Azza ☠]

Under 'Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management', you have 'Storage > Disk Management'.

Here you can view all your hard drives and their partitions/allocations.

Find your SSD (30GB) from the list. Layout: Simple / Type: Basic. The File System should be empty and status 'Healthy (EFI System Partition rather than Primary Partition)'. Below it will says 'Unallocated' on the space.

If it's already a primary active partition, formatted as NTFS or something else, with a drive letter assigned, you can remove that, but will lose any data currently on the drive.

Is the SSD a brand new drive or previously been used for something?

[cottonmouth]

iv had this SSD since Cyberpower helped me build my rig just over 2 years ago...

[cottonmouth]

initialise disk

before it lets me do anything its asking that i choose MBR (master reboot record) or GPT (guid partition table)

i dont know what these are, iv never been here before

looks like i should click MBR

[Azza ☠]

MBR (master boot record) is standard and will work for all < 2TB hard drives.

GPT is newer, more for large drives (> 2TB support) and limited to later version of Windows, so if you move drives to another system it might not see it. No need to go GPT on a drive under 2.2 TB, not much speed difference. Unless you want to create more than four partitions, but that's pretty rare.

[cottonmouth]

it was asking me to initialise my SSD , so its showing that my SSD is marked black meaning unallocated, 27.95gb...
does this mean that my SSD has not been in use and iv only just initialised it for use ?!

[Azza ☠]

Initalise it as MBR (or GPT if you really wanted that, not that it matters), but leave it unallocated and not formated.

You might need to reboot first (remember to ensure the BIOS is set on RAID mode), but the next step is to go into Intel Rapid Storage and set up the aceleration, it will find your unallocated SSD space and setup it's own partition on that.

[cottonmouth]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Azza ☠:

Initalise it as MBR, but leave it unallocated and not formated.

i did

question. has my SSD not been in use all this time as iv just initialised it ?

[Azza ☠]

It's been unused all this time by the sounds of what your told me... You only get to initalise a HDD or SSD once for it's first time (brand new). Only after it's initalisation, can it be partitioned and/or formatted for use. Nothing would be on the drive.

[cottonmouth]

no way, so iv had this sitting in my rig, and it hasnt been getting used,

crazy

so what types of stuff can i use my SSD for to get maximum performance/speed overall across my rig/system?
someone told me a while ago to have my windows on my SSD for faster boot-ups...

ok, so the next step is to reboot and get into the bios for my SSD from the boot up screen ?
and set it to RAID ?

[Azza ☠]

Unless you wish to re-install the entire OS or clone it to the new SSD as another hard drive (and it will fit), then move all your games, etc, to your HDD (relinking manually or reinstalling them all under Windows), your best bet and quickest/safest option is to just use it as a cache drive...

Reboots and press F2 (or whatever button your motherboard uses) to enter BIOS.

This layout varies between motherboards. Under Advanced > IDE Configuration, look for your SATA options. You will have IDE, RAID, and AHCI. If it's set to AHCI, you can change that to RAID. Press F10 or whatever to save and reboot. Remember or write down your changes. If it's already RAID, that's great, leave it and don't save changes. If it's IDE (which is old and hopefully not used), then you might have issues changing over to RAID, be careful.

If your OS doesn't boot for any reason, reverse your changes. You might need to do a Windows small registry hack to get it to accept in some cases - because it was installed on the other format. Normally however ACHI to RAID is fine, and it will still treat the HDD as ACHI on RAID anyways - RAID just allows one or more drives to work with each other.

Extra tip: Once you have your SSD all setup and working, go re-run your WEI. Control Panel > System > Windows Experience Index. It might say new hardware detected and give a higher performance mark on your hard disk (if you accelerated the primary one) > 5.9. This also triggers some automatic events in Windows to make sure it's using the SSD correctly, such as ensuring T.R.I.M is enabled for it, etc - if not already setup.