SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD - faster game loading?

[Jinx]

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Desktop-Caching-SSD-SDSSDRC-032G-G26/dp/B008U3038I/

I've been considering this little guy as an upgrade since I saw it, but I'm having trouble finding any specific game-related benchmarks. I'm primarily interested in reducing loading times in games. Mine are hardly bad, but if it would cut them down and speed up the rest of my system that would be great.

I know it won't be as fast as putting games onto an SSD, but this thing is $47 vs double that for even a 120GB SSD. And I a) wouldn't have to shuffle games on/off it (they are on a 3TB drive) and it would speed up my entire system, not just things installed on it (you don't install anything on it, it is used for cache kind of like a hybrid HDD).

So has anyone used it? Did it have a noticeable impact on your loading times for games and game levels?

Or has anyone seen a gaming-oriented review anywhere? I haven't been able to find much of anything. The closest was the HardOCP review, which suggested it was almost 3 times faster for loading game levels, but it didn't mention any specific games!
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/10/17/sandisk_readycache_32gb_ssd_review/7#.UVI_pldfszZ

Also found this half-decent Amazon review, but again I'll like more info:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2SKYXSV7RXQWH?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B008U3038I&cdForum=Fx2KVB2PRY2Y9CJ&cdMSG

Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks gang!

[Jinx]

CJ, afaik it gradually purges old data to make room for new data, and only caches files that have been accessed 3-4 times. When I was doing tests with Skyrim, I think I had to load the game at least twice to notice a difference in speed, 3-4 to get the maximum benefit. It really cut my load times in that game a lot.

Honestly, though, load times for many games on PC are so minimal that on a good HDD you can barely read the freaking hint screens. So it's really only going to affect certain games, and only if you are playing that particular game regularly enough that it keeps it cached.

Unfortunately you can't set it to only cache from certain drives or folders. I really want to set it to cache *only* my 3TB game installs drive. Ideally, I'd have it cache only from the install folders of Skyrim and a half-dozen other games like Stalker and Fallout that I have modded the so much that load times are longer. I have two 1TB data drives and another for the OS, it probably wastes a lot of time/space caching from those drives when I could care less about them or boot times.

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Origineel geplaatst door rad87gn:

Anything USB is not even close to a SSD SATA 3. No, gaming loading wise nothing SATA 2 with 2 good drives can't do. SSD with the OS is awesome. Fast as crap booting and snappy as you use it. RAID 0 with a few good 64mb drives is magic with games. IF you own a ton of games SSD is not cheap enough yet to run it for everything. RAID 0 is. I personally use a SSD for the OS and a few 1TB 64MB drives in RAID 0 for mass storage. Works awesome.

Serious Sam 3 is a good loading benchmark. My RAID 0 works fine. Only thing that can hang with me is Linux. Just cause it has less overhead (30 year UNIX nerd). I get 300MB/sec with RAID 0 HDD and 550MB/sec with SSD on Windows 64-bit. Only time it got anything on the SSD is snappiness and quickness on reboot and main apps. Gaming wise it made no difference.

Nothings usb, so what are you talking about.

Origineel geplaatst door ☥ - CJ -:

Origineel geplaatst door MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™ #idle:

Ah ok thx, but why would you have to make room? Wouldn't the data age out or get replaced once other stuff merits it?

When the disk gets full it clears itself, so either way itd get cleared eventually.. so itd be better to just manually do it yourself.

And no it doesnt go away after a period of time as far as i know.

Be sure to get the latest software from the sandisk site and not use the software that is provided from disk. the latest software no longer requires a key to be entered to use the software, the disk version still requires a key..

So using the latest software from sandisk is recommended.

Ah k, they should probably change that behavior:P

Origineel geplaatst door Jinx:

CJ, afaik it gradually purges old data to make room for new data, and only caches files that have been accessed 3-4 times. When I was doing tests with Skyrim, I think I had to load the game at least twice to notice a difference in speed, 3-4 to get the maximum benefit. It really cut my load times in that game a lot.

Honestly, though, load times for many games on PC are so minimal that on a good HDD you can barely read the freaking hint screens. So it's really only going to affect certain games, and only if you are playing that particular game regularly enough that it keeps it cached.

Unfortunately you can't set it to only cache from certain drives or folders. I really want to set it to cache *only* my 3TB game installs drive. Ideally, I'd have it cache only from the install folders of Skyrim and a half-dozen other games like Stalker and Fallout that I have modded the so much that load times are longer. I have two 1TB data drives and another for the OS, it probably wastes a lot of time/space caching from those drives when I could care less about them or boot times.

Ok I guess its slightly smarter than intels motherboard cache tech, which just copys block for block anything read.


Yea I have a 3TB boot and 3 other drives..so buying any ssd or just moving over to one is not something i can do right now.

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Origineel geplaatst door ☥ - CJ -:

Origineel geplaatst door MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™ #idle:

Ah ok thx, but why would you have to make room? Wouldn't the data age out or get replaced once other stuff merits it?

When the disk gets full it clears itself, so either way itd get cleared eventually.. so itd be better to just manually do it yourself.

And no it doesnt go away after a period of time as far as i know.

Be sure to get the latest software from the sandisk site and not use the software that is provided from disk. the latest software no longer requires a key to be entered to use the software, the disk version still requires a key..

So using the latest software from sandisk is recommended.

OK, yea I read more on the intel srt cache, seems to be based partially on software too, the break down of how that works is that the flush cache feature is only there so if you have a different user or are going to completely change your application loading behavior you start from scratch so the cache fills with new stuff faster, but you only do this if the old cache is no longer related to what you are going to do in the future. So manual flushing shouldn't be necessary for normal usage.

So far the system feels snappier. Haven't fully tested it out yet.

[Jinx]

Does anyone use RAID with HDDs any more? I keep reading that they aren't worth the bother. I have two identical 1TB drives, though (currrently just with data). I could easily dump the data on the 3TB, and move most games to the RAID drive.

Worth it? Eh?

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Harddrive raid is most certainly not worth it anymore. Well outside of mirror raid, still the performance is not there if you do the dangerous raid modes. Harddrive raid is now for redundancy.... raid 5 arrays, or drobo, basically mass storage, not for performance.

And also the cache flush popups are a bug, it triggers anytime the cache drops by a certain %, its not actually reset.

[MorphineJH]

RAID is used for either speed, data integrity, or both. Most users on here use RAID 0 (for speed) and it does make a difference. I actually have a RAID 0 with two SSDs, and another set of standard drives RAID 1 for storage.

But it's only worth it if you need it. I wouldn't recommened it if you are satisfied with your current setup.

EDIT: Although RAID 0 is faster than a single SSD drive, that is not why I chose to use it. I use it to limit the write cycles to try and increase the life expectancy of my drives. Flash memory has a finite amount of write operations.

Origineel geplaatst door Jinx:

Does anyone use RAID with HDDs any more? I keep reading that they aren't worth the bother. I have two identical 1TB drives, though (currrently just with data). I could easily dump the data on the 3TB, and move most games to the RAID drive.

Worth it? Eh?

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Yep, it makes a difference but you double the risk of failure, so then extensive backup becomes even more important, but with enough money anything is possible lol.

[Jinx]

Well I would use that ONLY for game installs. And since game saves tend to be stored in My Documents etc. anyway (which is on a different drive with Windows) the risk is minimal. I'd just lose the game installs, and have to download them again from Steam.

But at this point I'm pretty happen with loading times. Usually just a few seconds, with the exception of games like Skyrim where I'm running big texture packs etc. So probably not worth the bother.

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

1.3 updated and fixed previous issues.

[[☥] - CJ -]

thx for the post otherwise i wouldnt have known about the update even though i check it now n then lol

[Jinx]

Origineel geplaatst door MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™ #idle:

1.3 updated and fixed previous issues.

I'm a little angry. I have 1.1.0 of ExpressCache... and it has a menu where it's supposed to TELL YOU if there's an update. Why the h*ll would you put that in the program if it didn't freaking work?!

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Origineel geplaatst door Jinx:

Origineel geplaatst door MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™ #idle:

1.3 updated and fixed previous issues.

I'm a little angry. I have 1.1.0 of ExpressCache... and it has a menu where it's supposed to TELL YOU if there's an update. Why the h*ll would you put that in the program if it didn't freaking work?!

I think there was a problem with 1.1.0 update not working right, but people dropped back to that one or just never upgraded. The update from 1.2 to 1.3 works fine though:P

[[☥] - CJ -]

uninstall the older version before 1.2 and install the latest version..

When i updated to 1.3 from 1.2 after the update/reboot it was still saying there was an update and still using the old GUI..

But i closed the icon and started the software via the startmenu and the GUI/version came up as the correct one.

so its a lil iffy.. i like the new GUI tho

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Yea sane color choices this time, anti virus alert red was a bad idea lol