Using an SSD as cache (Windows 10)
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Hey, who knows about using a spare SSD in my computer as a secondary cache?
Unless the response is "oh dear god no no no", I have it, it's there, I might as well try.
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But why? If you're already using an SSD there will be no benefit. You'll just be copying from one ssd to another
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@wildbaboons said in Using an SSD as cache (Windows 10):
But why? If you're already using an SSD there will be no benefit. You'll just be copying from one ssd to another
I have one SSD for the OS, and one HDD for many programs. (coughgamescough)
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain I use one SSD for windows, and put /some/ games onto the SSD as well, not all mind you, just some. Then I have big data hd's for everything else. To be honest, the differences are not /that/ big, at least on my system, between the games on SSD and not, it's mostly about loading screens which, are no big most of the time anyways.
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@thenomain said in Using an SSD as cache (Windows 10):
@wildbaboons said in Using an SSD as cache (Windows 10):
But why? If you're already using an SSD there will be no benefit. You'll just be copying from one ssd to another
I have one SSD for the OS, and one HDD for many programs. (coughgamescough)
I only use HDDs for backups, generic downloads and stuff I absolutely don't care about access times. For example media I play off of my Plex server don't need to be on an SSD, but games would fall into that category - for me.
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In short, it's not a bad idea at all.
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So: Don't use it as a cache, just another hard drive. Well that's no fun, but sometimes practical is the best answer.
Thanks.
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No, I mean - use it as a cache, why not. You could move games to it, and switch your HDD to a backup if you want, instead, but Intel's SRT is pretty good. I have no idea how it's handled AMD.
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There are some advantages to using a separate physical drive to cache - primarily, it's because a computer can generally either read, or write, to any given hard drive at any given time - not both at once. Even if you have two partitions and have the cache on the second one, it's still the same physical drive and still faces the same problem. Having a separate drive allows it to be reading on one and writing on the other and vice versa, which can save a bit of time.
If you already have a SSD boot drive, though, the difference will be minimal to imperceptible since the R/W on those is pretty damn fast - and this is especially true if your system has more than 8GB of RAM as well. The above method was great back in the day of 5200RPM mechanical drives, but more modern equipment provides diminishing returns. -
You could go spanned or striped drive (one logical drive made of two or more physical drives). Striped is faster but the drives need to be the same size. This is just a suggestion to use the spare SSD. The alternative could be to turn it into an external drive for backups and the like (get the kit to make it pretty).
For me I don't think there is much to gain trying to us the ssd for caching but that's just: the level of complexity vs the payout , divided by my lazy, equals fuck that.
Then when it's all over and the rest of you are ready for Dead Animal Pickup, I'm gonna go balls deep into Dahl. But only because she asked me to. Sweet-like. - Riddick (2013)
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@thatonedude said in Using an SSD as cache (Windows 10):
You could go spanned or striped drive (one logical drive made of two or more physical drives). Striped is faster but the drives need to be the same size. This is just a suggestion to use the spare SSD. The alternative could be to turn it into an external drive for backups and the like (get the kit to make it pretty).
For me I don't think there is much to gain trying to us the ssd for caching but that's just: the level of complexity vs the payout , divided by my lazy, equals fuck that.
Not entirely sure how much Windows 10 writes in the cache, just be aware SSD's are limited by the number of writes. On systems that used SSD's as temp storage with a crap-ton of writes, I've seen SSD's die in a few months. This was, however, production level temp space, and I doubt you'd have to worry with Windows 10 cache drives, but I've never sat down and spent time on how much Windows writes in caches nor how often.
I'll leave it up to those who have far more experience than I do.
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@ashen-shugar Fortunately SSD drives have gotten better at this recently, most SSD drives will last many many years of near constant writing. Unless it was like, non-stop ram level flush and fill maybe... but I am no expert.
