Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 16 of 24

Thread: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

  1. #1
    HEXUS.admin
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    31,709
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    2,073 times in 719 posts

    Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    An affordable path to SSD-like performance?
    Read more.

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    257
    Thanks
    3
    Thanked
    21 times in 16 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    For a drive like this, some real world boot/application timings would have been incredibly helpful, because it is obviously a very differnet product to a regular SSD. Whilst the synthetic results are helpful, when a drive is sold specifically as an "accelerator", it'd be nice to see examples of real PC use.

    Also, what versions of Windows (or other OSs) are supported? Again, with the idea of it being an "accelerator", it would be useful to know whether it can be used with older PCs (which would only have slower SATA ports anyway) running Vista or even XP.

  3. Received thanks from:

    Noxvayl (25-04-2012)

  4. #3
    Registered+
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Posts
    37
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    2 times in 2 posts
    • darkblueslider's system
      • CPU:
      • Intel C2D 2.4ghz Notebook
      • Memory:
      • 4GB DDR2
      • Case:
      • Apple Macbook Pro 13.3"
      • Monitor(s):
      • 24" Samsung 2443BW

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Agree with Irien. Maybe I missed it, but any real world benchmarks of how long it takes to load windows with results in seconds would be great

  5. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Kingdom of Fife (Scotland)
    Posts
    4,991
    Thanks
    393
    Thanked
    220 times in 190 posts
    • crossy's system
      • Motherboard:
      • ASUS Sabertooth X99
      • CPU:
      • Intel 5830k / Noctua NH-D15
      • Memory:
      • 32GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4
      • Storage:
      • 500GB Samsung 850Pro NVMe, 1TB Samsung 850EVO SSD, 1TB Seagate SSHD, 2TB WD Green, 8TB Seagate
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Asus Strix GTX970OC
      • PSU:
      • Corsair AX750 (modular)
      • Case:
      • Coolermaster HAF932 (with wheels)
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 Pro 64bit, Ubuntu 16.04LTS
      • Monitor(s):
      • LG Flattron W2361V
      • Internet:
      • VirginMedia 200Mb

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Quote Originally Posted by Irien View Post
    Also, what versions of Windows (or other OSs) are supported? Again, with the idea of it being an "accelerator", it would be useful to know whether it can be used with older PCs (which would only have slower SATA ports anyway) running Vista or even XP.
    From what little information that's available on the DataPlex software this looks like it's Windows7 only - although at least it's both 32bit and 64bit versions. So if you've got older Windows then I suspect you'll be out of luck. As to Mac and Linux - forget it.

    Back to the article, this looks like an interesting product, but restricting it's use case to only the boot drive seems pretty short-sighted. I'm sure that there's a lot of folks (besides me of course) that'd like to apply this kind of caching solution to a large HDD-based "app" drive. As it is, I'm going to have to wait until the price of large SSD's falls to an affordable level.

    Career status: still enjoying my new career in DevOps, but it's keeping me busy...

  6. #5
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    London (almost)
    Posts
    1,080
    Thanks
    20
    Thanked
    34 times in 28 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Tempting, though you have to wonder how long it will last being thrashed around so much. Though if it does die it should all be fairly safe and at worst you would only lose the very latest data (I think)

  7. #6
    OilSheikh
    Guest

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Am I missing something? It's almost the same price as a SSD drive. The only thing this is doing is helping people who are lazy to reinstall OS on a new SSD.

    Has FAIL written all over it?

  8. #7
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    1,130
    Thanks
    6
    Thanked
    98 times in 91 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    what's the difference between this and a normal SSD? isn't it the software that's different and the hardware is basically the same? thus someone could make software to do the same thing using any standard SSD? or you could use one of these as a normal SSD? or am i missing something?

  9. #8
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    London (almost)
    Posts
    1,080
    Thanks
    20
    Thanked
    34 times in 28 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Quote Originally Posted by OilSheikh View Post
    Am I missing something? It's almost the same price as a SSD drive. The only thing this is doing is helping people who are lazy to reinstall OS on a new SSD.

    Has FAIL written all over it?
    A) Some people have better things to do than reinstall Windows manage which files they want in an ssd and which ones they don't.

    B) Any programs you installed on a hard drive that you sue regularly will get cached, particularly useful if say you have a bunch of games installed. The ones you played most recently and frequently will get a nice load time boost.

  10. #9
    OilSheikh
    Guest

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    120GB costs £100. Assuming games are each 6GB, most people only have 5-10 games installed at any one time.

  11. #10
    Anthropomorphic Personification shaithis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    The Last Aerie
    Posts
    10,857
    Thanks
    645
    Thanked
    872 times in 736 posts
    • shaithis's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus P8Z77 WS
      • CPU:
      • i7 3770k @ 4.5GHz
      • Memory:
      • 32GB HyperX 1866
      • Storage:
      • Lots!
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Sapphire Fury X
      • PSU:
      • Corsair HX850
      • Case:
      • Corsair 600T (White)
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 x64
      • Monitor(s):
      • 2 x Dell 3007
      • Internet:
      • Zen 80Mb Fibre

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Quote Originally Posted by krazy_olie View Post
    A) Some people have better things to do than reinstall Windows manage which files they want in an ssd and which ones they don't.
    Fair point. Although like everything in life, there are trade-offs...some of which are massive.

    Quote Originally Posted by krazy_olie View Post
    B) Any programs you installed on a hard drive that you sue regularly will get cached, particularly useful if say you have a bunch of games installed. The ones you played most recently and frequently will get a nice load time boost.
    All well and good until you think about how it works. You play games X and Y for 6 months.......you then install Z. You may have to keep running Z on and off for 6 months before the caching decides it should be cached and something else moved out. It is a rather extreme scenario that probably won't be hit but the concept is applicable and why I would never use an SSD for caching.

    The day some simple algorithm can guess what I want to load fast, better then I can, I will switch. Until then it's just a really dumb tool that looks great in benchmarks and in use......at least in the short-term.......after 6-12 months of the system being used though?
    The reviews (including Hexus) that I have seen for these caching SSDs has made me quite angry. They load something on a fresh install and then load it again.....and it loads really fast. most people will see that and think "wow!" without thinking about the long term implications.
    Main PC: Asus Rampage IV Extreme / 3960X@4.5GHz / Antec H1200 Pro / 32GB DDR3-1866 Quad Channel / Sapphire Fury X / Areca 1680 / 850W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold 2 / Corsair 600T / 2x Dell 3007 / 4 x 250GB SSD + 2 x 80GB SSD / 4 x 1TB HDD (RAID 10) / Windows 10 Pro, Yosemite & Ubuntu
    HTPC: AsRock Z77 Pro 4 / 3770K@4.2GHz / 24GB / GTX 1080 / SST-LC20 / Antec TP-550 / Hisense 65k5510 4K TV / HTC Vive / 2 x 240GB SSD + 12TB HDD Space / Race Seat / Logitech G29 / Win 10 Pro
    HTPC2: Asus AM1I-A / 5150 / 4GB / Corsair Force 3 240GB / Silverstone SST-ML05B + ST30SF / Samsung UE60H6200 TV / Windows 10 Pro
    Spare/Loaner: Gigabyte EX58-UD5 / i950 / 12GB / HD7870 / Corsair 300R / Silverpower 700W modular
    NAS 1: HP N40L / 12GB ECC RAM / 2 x 3TB Arrays || NAS 2: Dell PowerEdge T110 II / 24GB ECC RAM / 2 x 3TB Hybrid arrays || Network:Buffalo WZR-1166DHP w/DD-WRT + HP ProCurve 1800-24G
    Laptop: Dell Precision 5510 Printer: HP CP1515n || Phone: Huawei P30 || Other: Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Pro 10.1 CM14 / Playstation 4 + G29 + 2TB Hybrid drive

  12. #11
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    London (almost)
    Posts
    1,080
    Thanks
    20
    Thanked
    34 times in 28 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Quote Originally Posted by shaithis View Post
    Fair point. Although like everything in life, there are trade-offs...some of which are massive.



    All well and good until you think about how it works. You play games X and Y for 6 months.......you then install Z. You may have to keep running Z on and off for 6 months before the caching decides it should be cached and something else moved out. It is a rather extreme scenario that probably won't be hit but the concept is applicable and why I would never use an SSD for caching.

    The day some simple algorithm can guess what I want to load fast, better then I can, I will switch. Until then it's just a really dumb tool that looks great in benchmarks and in use......at least in the short-term.......after 6-12 months of the system being used though?
    The reviews (including Hexus) that I have seen for these caching SSDs has made me quite angry. They load something on a fresh install and then load it again.....and it loads really fast. most people will see that and think "wow!" without thinking about the long term implications.
    Well I would ignore benchmarks in this sort of thing and focus on a more qualitative approach. Windows will boot faster, your browser, media player etc will load faster etc. It might not boot quite as fast but will you really notice?

    I don't think it's a simple case of throwing things in and out, the algorithms are likely quite smart and probably a bit more advanced than than an LRU that you might see in a cpu cache. In the case above on install it's highly likely that Z will get partially cached immediately.
    I would hazard a guess that there is some sort of points/value system going on.
    While in theory managing on one's own is more optimal it assumes that the user in questions knows what needs to be loaded. For example it may seem obvious to dump an entire OS on to an ssd, but the reality is that there's a whole heap of stuff just sitting there taking up valuable ssd space.

    As with a cpu cache they sometimes seem a bit illogical and it is possible to program in a way that pretty much stops caches working properly, but the reality is that behaviour is usually predictable so we have algorithms to take care of it rather programmers allocating some data to on board memory and some to main memory.

    I think the main thing here is convenience though, and it is more targeted at people with systems up and running who just want to make everything a bit snappier. It probably carries less merit in a fresh build. Each to their own

  13. #12
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    2,567
    Thanks
    39
    Thanked
    179 times in 134 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    ocz agility 3 are £59 on scan right now - why would anyone want this when a faster drive is cheaper? and by default newer intel boards can do ssd caching

  14. #13
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    London (almost)
    Posts
    1,080
    Thanks
    20
    Thanked
    34 times in 28 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Quote Originally Posted by HalloweenJack View Post
    ocz agility 3 are £59 on scan right now - why would anyone want this when a faster drive is cheaper? and by default newer intel boards can do ssd caching
    Would be a better bet with a new build, probably, but the software based caching systems are motherboard independent so can be used on older systems (and amd ones too...). Also with intel's srt you need to run as a RAID, not sure if that's something you can change if you aren't already doing so.

  15. #14
    boop, got your nose stevie lee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    southport
    Posts
    2,689
    Thanks
    420
    Thanked
    440 times in 326 posts
    • stevie lee's system
      • Motherboard:
      • ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming
      • CPU:
      • Ryzen 3600
      • Memory:
      • 16 GB Corsair 3600 MHZ Cas 18
      • Storage:
      • 250GB BX500, M500 240GB, SN750 1TB NVME, mechs - Hitachi 1TB. WDblue 2TB
      • Graphics card(s):
      • sapphire 7700 1gb
      • PSU:
      • corsair RM550X
      • Case:
      • Xigmatech Midgard
      • Operating System:
      • Win 10 Home
      • Monitor(s):
      • 42" Panasonix viera (1080p limited RGB)
      • Internet:
      • plusnet fibre

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    so if this drive is used to cache any drive. can you use it to cache an SSD drive? will it improve the speed of them too, or does it just work with mechanical spinny ones?


    the 'primary volume' thing - is that only for C: drive, or is it any drive thats marked as primary in the disk management? because all of my 4 drives are marked as primary. and my 640GB games drive might want boosting up a bit and not the C: drive.
    It takes quite a while reinstalling all 70 of my games (ive got another 40 or so not installed at the moment, but im working on it), so somethig like this would work wonders. Because a 500GB+ SSD costs waaaaay to much and i like having all my games installed at once so i can play what i want when i want. (thats one reason someone would want one of these, seen as people are asking that queston)

  16. #15
    Account closed at user request
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Elephant watch camp
    Posts
    2,150
    Thanks
    56
    Thanked
    115 times in 103 posts
    • wasabi's system
      • Motherboard:
      • MSI B85M-G43
      • CPU:
      • i3-4130
      • Memory:
      • 8 gig DDR3 Crucial Rendition 1333 - cheap!
      • Storage:
      • 128 gig Agility 3, 240GB Corsair Force 3
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Zotac GTX 750Ti
      • PSU:
      • Silver Power SP-S460FL
      • Case:
      • Lian Li T60 testbanch
      • Operating System:
      • Win7 64bit
      • Monitor(s):
      • First F301GD Live
      • Internet:
      • Virgin cable 100 meg

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Quote Originally Posted by stevie lee View Post
    so if this drive is used to cache any drive. can you use it to cache an SSD drive? will it improve the speed of them too, or does it just work with mechanical spinny ones?


    the 'primary volume' thing - is that only for C: drive, or is it any drive thats marked as primary in the disk management? because all of my 4 drives are marked as primary. and my 640GB games drive might want boosting up a bit and not the C: drive.
    It takes quite a while reinstalling all 70 of my games (ive got another 40 or so not installed at the moment, but im working on it), so somethig like this would work wonders. Because a 500GB+ SSD costs waaaaay to much and i like having all my games installed at once so i can play what i want when i want. (thats one reason someone would want one of these, seen as people are asking that queston)
    Agree. I've got a 60 gig OCZ Vertex my boot drive and a 5400rpm as my 'data' drive. It would be nice to put some games and less frequently used programs on there due to space constraints on the boot disk.

  17. #16
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Edinburgh
    Posts
    255
    Thanks
    11
    Thanked
    2 times in 2 posts

    Re: Reviews - Corsair Accelerator Series SSD Cache (60GB)

    Quote Originally Posted by HalloweenJack View Post
    ocz agility 3 are £59 on scan right now - why would anyone want this when a faster drive is cheaper? and by default newer intel boards can do ssd caching
    but that would mean i'd have to get a new motherboard, cpu and memory. and then reinstall everything etc. and at the end of the day still have less storage on my primary drive.

    this seems like an ideal solution to speed up an aging system and i'm seriously tempted, particulary by the 30gig one. i have 1tb primary drive, loads of steam games etc so using that would surely be better than trying to micromanage install locations of individual games in steam.

    What I would like to know though is if it speeds up boot time and more importantly resume from hibernation

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •