Chassis and accessories maker Silverstone has recently announced the HDDBoost, a device which combines the blazing read speeds of an SSD with the storage capacity of a standard mechanical disk.
“HDDBOOST is a unique product that combines the best qualities of traditional hard drive and solid state disk (SSD) into one virtual super storage solution,” Silverstone says. “Depending on the speed of the SSD added, the HDDBOOST can increase the performance of an existing host hard drive up to 70%!”
“This speed increase is very noticeable and significant for any PC users that have not experienced using SSD drives before. For those who are not ready to compromise on storage capacity and reliability for speed, HDDBOOST will enable SSD speed on its host hard drive and reduce the write times to SSD’s more fragile flash-based storage system, thus extending its effective lifetime.”
How it works
After connecting the SSD to the included SATA power and data connectors in the 5.25″ caddy (CD-ROM bay), the caddy is then connected via SATA to a mechanical hard disk. Once that’s complete, a final SATA cable is connected from the caddy to the system’s mainboard, and power is given to both hard disks.
Upon initial boot, the controller aboard the HDDBoost will sequentially mirror the beginning of the hard disk to the SSD until the SSD is full. For most users–anyone who has an OS installed to their C: drive–this means that the SSD will contain a perfect replica of the operating system and dozens of gigs of user files. Silverstone advises that users defragment their hard disk before attaching it to the HDDBoost so as to copy the ideal number and position of files.
Once this copy has been completed, the onboard controller follows a priority list that specifies how data is read and written to the unique array:
- When data is present on both drives, read from the SSD.
- When data is not present on both drives, read from the HDD.
- Data will only be written to HDD.
In other words, the SSD’s lifespan will be greatly increased by limiting the writes only to those which are necessary to synchronize data between it and the mechanical disk. More importantly to users, having a copy of the OS loaded onto the SSD means virtually every function of Windows will benefit from the lightning-fast random read performance of an SSD’s flash memory.
Why it rules
Users frequently cite the capacity of SSDs as one of the major reasons why they aren’t ready to spring for an SSD, but this complaint overlooks the fact that SSDs aren’t particularly made for mass storage. Better used as an “application accelerator,” buying a small SSD strictly for use as the operating system’s boot device maximizes system performance while leaving the burdens of the swap file and storage to the more suitable hard disk.
Sadly, many users are unaware of this configuration’s benefits, haven’t stopped to reconsider the storage paradigm, or are simply daunted by the many tweaks necessary to optimize this configuration. The Silverstone HDDBoost, however, couldn’t make it any easier. By copying the OS to the SSD and exclusively preferring the hard disk for writes, users can enjoy all the benefits of the fastest disk configuration on earth without stepping one foot into the registry or undertaking a reformat.
What disks we recommend
While some of our readers no doubt have an SSD and mechanical disk they’ve already paired, we suspect most of you are Windows users that would like a few economical SSD choices that will yield optimal performance when paired with your HDD. Given that the majority of Windows’ hard disk tasks are small and random, we’ve prioritized SSDs according to their random 4k read performance; doing this will give you the fastest boot times and maximum responsiveness.
From best to “worst:”
- 80GB Intel X25-M G2: $289.95, approximately 60MB/s random 4k
- 64GB Patriot Torqx: $269.00, approximately 38MB/s random 4k
- 64GB OCZ Vertex Turbo: $239.00, approximately 35MB/s random 4k
- 64GB OCZ Vertex: $239.00, approximately 35MB/s random 4k
You truly can’t go wrong with any of these drives, as all of them are excellent performers backed by robust manufacturers, particularly those from OCZ and Intel.
Availability
There is no word as to when this device will become available in the States, but it has already appeared on Silverstone’s product page and with European retailers, so we imagine that a retail introduction can’t be far off. Anyone keeping an eye out for the device should look for model number SST-HDDBOOST.
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