For roughly AED 400 you can either get a 1TB (or more, depending on brand) hard drive, compared to a 120GB (or lower, depending on brand) solid state drive. So either you invest heavily in an SSD and only have Windows and a few other daily use software on it, or stick to the tried and tested mechanical hard drives.
Hybrid Systems
Thankfully there are a few manufacturers out there who provide a solution that’s in-between. Sure, Seagate has their Momentus XT hybrid drives, and Western Digital is also coming up with their own solution early next year. However, even that is a solution limited by capacity
And so SanDisk brings a solution that’s more practical for people who don’t want to disrupt their existing setups, nor pay a hefty price for the accompanying speed bump. The SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD is basically a drive that’s designed to bring an ultra-fast caching solution for your current mechanical hard drives.
The proposition is simple: you plug in the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD into your PC, download the software which sets up your drives’ data to be cached on the SSD. After some time (hours to days) the SSD software recognizes your frequently used programs and their data is cached onto the SSD for instant use whenever you next launch your software of choice.
Setup So let’s break it down a little, stating with the installation. The SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD comes with an instructional manual, a SATA III (6Gbps) data cable, a 3.5-inch bracket with screws and the SSD itself. Given the extremely low profile of just 7mm, the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD can even be used in slim laptops (that have capacity for two drives).
Once installed, the drive immediately shows up on Windows 7. At this point you have to go and download the ExpressCache software which allows an extremely easy on-click solution to activate the caching on the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD and selecting which drives you want to cache
The ExpressCache software even shows the amount of storage been used on the drive for cache. Furthermore there’s even a real-time graph showing how much of the cached data is being used at the moment
And just in case you want to change your usage habits (brought about by installation of big games or programs) then you can simply click a button to clear out the entire cache on the drive and it’ll start from scratch. Don’t worry about losing any of the cached data as all of it is written onto the actual hard drives as well for backup automatically.
Benchmarks
For testing the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD the below setup was used.
Let’s see how the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD improves performance on an existing setup. The results below are shown after running the tests for the fourth time, to give the drive time to cache the data. For comparison I have used the SanDisk Extreme 120GB SATA III SSD, the Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid drive and a test with a 1TB Seagate 7200RPM HDD coupled with a 20GB mSATA SSD to test out the Intel's Smart Response Technology .
Speed
I have used ATTO Disk Benchmark to get the sequential read and write speeds and Crystal Diskmark for 4K speeds.
PCMark 7 The PCMark 7 Storage benchmarks are some of the most stressing tests designed for modern hard drives and solid state drives. There are a number of tests performed, focusing on different aspects of the drive and eventually churn out a score based on the overall performance of the drive. Below I have shown the total PCMark 7 storage score for multiple hard drives and SSDs.
Windows 7 For the Windows 7 boot time, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit on these hard drives, with just the basic drivers installed for the motherboard and graphics card. No antivirus or any other applications were installed since any programs installed by users are arbitrary and will change startup time. The time measured in seconds below is after POST (when the ‘Starting Windows’ logo appears) till the time I see the desktop and mouse.
As expected, the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD improves the speed significantly, although not, of course, toughing true SSD speeds. However, the jump we see from a regular 7200RPM hard drive to one that’s boosted by the SanDisk ReadyCache drive is significant.
Conclusion
So there you have it, if you want the speeds, or close to those of an SSD, the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD is a very elegant solution for your needs, more so because of the cheap setup cost and the simplicity with which things get rolling. Remember, that you won’t find an instant speed boost, time must be given for the ExpressCache software to learn your usage patterns, but in time you’ll be glad you have this hybrid system. Of course, if you’re building a new system and have some extra cash to spare, then you can always go with a complete SSD based system, like SanDisk’s Extreme series.
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