Since I've been using and touting the benefits of the Momentus XT Hybrid drives I figured I would open up a discussion related to SSD Caching and some of the newer technologies out there.

 

I'm not claiming to be an expert or even up to date on this newer technology, but I knew it was destined to make it to the desktop in various forms.

 

While browsing newegg I came across this product.

 

ICY DOCK MB882HX-1SB 2.5" SATA SSD Xpander Hybrid Adapter

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994122

http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=135

 

In the review it mentioned the newer Z68 chipsets.

 

While this isn't entirely unRAID specific, I see it's use in the "application" drive arena, or even in the cache/application drive arena.

 

I'm interested in other related links/articles/experiences with this newer technology.

What would be the advantages?

 

On the Icydock website it lists the hdd as having the same read/write. The advantage I see is double the ssd size but at the cost of losing some hdd space.

 

Would spending the money for the Icydock be better spent buying a bigger ssd in the first place?

 

Josh

Intel reckons that, while an SSD boot drive facilitates great performance, data not on the solid-state storage sees no benefit. Caching done right ensures anything you access frequently enjoys a performance improvement.

 

Judging from the performance benefit of a 4GB SSD/SLC cache on the momentus XT Hybrid drives, this could be a cost effective alternative for people who need a boost on the OS drive, while the data/storage area runs at the normal respective speeds.

 

Would spending the money for the Icydock be better spent buying a bigger ssd in the first place?

I suppose it would if you had the budget and did not need that much contiguous space. However as I've mentioned before, the concept works really well for the momentus XT hybrids. With those drives, the SSD/caches the most frequently used LBA's.  So information such as directory, filesystem specific tables and frequently accessed files are accessed at high speed.  I suppose this is a continuance of the turbo boost concept which didn't offer all that much at the time as it was usually only at USB speeds.

 

It's still worthy of a discussion, and in itself, might be useful for the APP/CACHE drive concept people are doing these days in unRAID.

Interesting...  Seems you would have to burn a lot of disk space on the mechanical unless you have deep pockets for a large SSD.