So, here's the situation. I have an OCZ Agility 3 (120GB) SSD divided as a 51.6GB System partition, and an exactly 60GB Data partition for BF3 and BF4. I also have a 2TB external drive, but nevermind that. Other than my SSD, I have an aging internal HDD of 500GB, and it's failing. It makes clicking noises when booting, previous to the BIOS boot screen, as if it's trying to start up multiple times before it gets it right. So I'm sure it's gonna fail at some point very soon, and I need a replacement. I've heard lots of good things about an SSHD as a primary "HDD", if you don't have the money for an SSD. For an example, it should make booting almost as fast as an SSD, as there's a dedicated part of the MLC flash memory for booting. But if you're using it as a secondary "HDD" with an SSD as a primary, will it actually speed things up? And what will the boot part of the MLC memory be used for, seeing as there's no OS for it to take care of? Seeing as they're only about 20-40$ more expensive than a similar capacity HDD here, is it worth the extra dough to buy one as a secondary disk? I know it's a lot of questions, but I haven't been able to find any good answers... so I'm hoping someone has some decent input. Either way, any feedback is appreciated! Cheers, and merry Christmas! Zareph / Peezee
That MLC on SSHD is used as cache. When you load something for the first time, it loads about as slow as on a regular HDD. But once you load it again, it speeds up a lot. If you just keep data like movies or music on your secondary HDD, SSHD won't make a difference. But if you keep programs and games that you use frequently, SSHD will speed things up.
What about the SLC cache then? Isn't that dedicated solely to boot data? I'm wondering if the SLC wouldn't be used at all if no OS is installed...
