So over the weekend I managed to pull off one of the pci-e x16 slots on my Gigabyte z77x-ud5h while trying to remove my sapphire 7950 Vapour X, I don't know how it happened as I wasn't using any serious force, I can only assume that the weight of the graphics card and multiple ventures to lan parties etc weakened the pci-e slot to a point where it just broke.
Anyway the main point of this post is I have ordered an ASUS P8z77-V premium to replace the gigabtye, the asus comes with some impressive features and is way overkill for my needs however who doesn't like to geek out over useless features.
My main question is the board comes with asus ssd caching II to accelerate platter HDDs if i am not mistaken, What I would like to do is use my Samsung Pro 256 ssd as my boot drive and then use the onboard Msata drive that comes with the mobo to accelerate a 2TB seagate baracuda drive.
Can anyone confirm that this configuration is possible and if so is it even a good idea?
I would ask myself if what I do with files on the mechanical drive makes it worthwhile to accelerate it. On my own system it wouldn't be, but it depends on what you use the system for. The 2TB Barracudas are reasonably fast as HDD's go.
Very true, I wanted to store my steam library stored on the 2Tb drive so was hoping I might benefit from fast loading times for frequently used games, also there are some programs that I would far rather have installed on my data drive, as I often use video conversion tools and don't want to flatten my Samsung SSD with read/writes.
I mean up untill now I have been using a fairly fas NAS system for all my data storage but sometimes I want the data stored locally when I dont have fast access to my NAS.
ripping of the pci-e slot... lol that´s Gigabyte´s quality! lol ☺
Anyway, yes SSD caching will work, but since you allready using a SSD as main boot drive, i dont realy think its worth it.. but you could give it a try.
Well What I really want to do is use the 32GB mSATA ssd thats already on the board to cache for my mass storage drive, so I will boot and run my most frequently used and or important prgrams on my 840 Pro and then main data and my steam library on the mass storage with the mSATA acting as a cache for that.
Are you sure that the MB comes with a 32GB mSATA drive? Unless you ordered one when you got the MB, I don't see anything anywhere saying that is has one that comes with it...
If it does come with it, why not use it? 32GB isn't really enough to do anything else with, especially when you already have 256GB of SSD space at your disposal.
In the above link in the initial product blurb it mentions a 32GB mSATA ssd on board, and then again on the specifications page, also all the reviews I have seen about the premium version of the board the reviewer has complained that the on board SSD is a waste of time as most users are already using large ssds on their systems,
Funny that they never mention using it to cache mass storage drives though, hence me wondering if it is possible.
Ohhhh, I missed the "premium" part of your post. I was looking at the lower versions, so you can see where I was confused. That's a pretty cool feature though!
Well, like I said above, since it comes with it, you may as well make use of it as a cache! Why let it go to waste?
main thing was finding out whether the set-up I want is even possible with this board, as all the reviews and write ups about it state that it caches your boot drive etc so I will have to wait until I get the board, I ordered it over the weekend last week, sadly the postal system here sucks so I should have it if not today then next week Wednesday. Soon as I get it Ill post back here with my thoughts about the board and whether I was successful with my caching :D