Will an mSATA really help?

[emax4]

Hello. I posted this thread on tomshardware.com but got no response, so I thought I'd ask here.

I am using a board which has an empty mSATA slot on the board. I'm also using a Kingston 64 GB SSD for my Mac OS and a Patriot 64 GB SSD for Windows 7. I also have a 1.5 TB Seagate drive partitioned into two; half for Mac files and the other half for PC files. Every so often when I retrieve something from the Seagate drive, there's a noticeable delay where I can hear some of the hardware of the hard drive moving around, probably trying to access files. It's more with the Mac but not the PC side.

So I've been toying with the idea of getting an mSATA drive to hopefully speed things up. I've read other posts on here that say an mSATA drive could actually hamper the speed of the SSDs, so if I purchase an mSATA I would like to apply this as a large cache for the Seagate drive.

1. In this case, is an mSATA drive helpful or totally unnecessary?

2. Could I install this an expect faster read/writes without having to reformat the Seagate? (I just don't wanna have to go through reinstalling all my games)

3. If it's a good idea to purchase one, what would be an ideal size? Most of the functions I use don't involve moving gigabytes of data.

[EricKei]

I don't know about mSATA, but on the games side -- If you happen to be using Steam (heck, it works for both platforms), just copy the entire Steam directory tree to a spare drive. After you wipe/reinstall the OS, copy the old directory back to where you want it to be and "install" Steam to that directory. It will recognize the existing files and simply update them as needed. It will treat each game as "freshly installed", so you will need to let it run the mini-setup for each one the first time you play. Note that Steam hides some things in your Documents folder, too, so copypasta those in as well.

[suburbandecay]

there's a noticeable delay where I can hear some of the hardware of the hard drive moving around, probably trying to access files. It's more with the Mac but not the PC side.

You can try unchecking the power saver setting "turn off my hard disks whenever possible" on the mac side. OSX has that set by default. On the windows side, you can change the behavior by going into the advanced settings for your power plan and changing the time on the "turn hard disks off after" option.

[emax4]

Thanks for the heads up! My Steam files are already on my 1.5 TB drive, since the 64 GB SSD is too small. I did have the "Put hard disks to sleep whenever possible", so I unchecked that and will test it out over time.

I have some large self-created video files that I tried transferring, and when I attempt to copy them to an external USB 250GB hard drive, I get the message (in OSX) that the file is too large to be copied. I don't know any terminal commands to force this, and I have yet to go through my 1.5 TB drive and assess what needs to be copied, what I can erase and reinstall from a DVD (or download), and what files I can afford to erase safely. I was under the impression that to create a Fusion Drive (large regular hard disk with an SSD or mSATA used as a cache drive), that the larger drive had to be reformatted. So in some ways I don't know if it's worth the trouble or effort. I don't want to invest $50 in an mSATA drive for just a periodic speed boost when accessing the files, but am also not sure of the speed boost I'll get.

Also, what capacity SSD do you recommend? I'm happy with the speeds I get on the Windows side, but as long as I have the SSD I would like to get the most out of it. With that said, would I be able to partition the SSD into two drives and use half for Windows, half for OSX? If I get a 30 or 32 GB mSATA drive, would 15GB or 16GB partition be acceptable for a cache drive in Fusion drive setup (15/16 GB for Win, 15/16 GB for Mac)? Is it even do-able to have that type of setup, or is the mSATA drive in a Fusion Drive setup only do-able when it's formatted for either Windows or OSX? Again, thanks for the answers and feedback.

[EricKei]

For Windows XP, I would say 32gigs just for Windows (I don't know if it applies to SSD's, but dropping below 30% free space on a Windows boot partition slows things down; under 20% makes loading times interminable) -- For 7 (We Do Not Speak of Vista), at least that much maybe closer to 64??? I've not researched it. Keep in mind that, these days, the diference in price between a 32/64gb SSD and a 128gb may not be more than $20 or so, especially if you wait for a sale.

Ideally, an SSD with an OS on it would have the OS itself and as little else as possible, unless the SSD has more space than you need -- e.g., I am preparing to redo Win7 64bit with a 128gb SSD as the boot drive, and the only things I will have on it are Windows itself (and the cache, swapfile, and index, etc), Office, and other programs that rely upon having big chunks on them on C no matter where you tell it to install, along with stuff that I use every day like the browser.

[emax4]

The info is helpful, but I've been told that an mSATA used as a Fusion drive with a regular SSD will actually react a little slower. That's why I wanted to use the mSATA in conjunction with the the larger, regular 1.5 TB hard drive. This way, the mSATA will act as an SSD cache drive for the 1.5 TB drive. At least, that's what I was under the impression of when reading about Fusion drives.

[EricKei]

PS on Steam - There is a built-in "backup local files" option, but I've never used it. Presumably, it would snag the files (such as local saves and screenies) that are not stored with the rest of the stuff

[emax4]

I've done that, but imagine backing up Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, Dirt 3 (got it free with a video card), Half Life 2, and a bunch of other games to multiple DVDs. I'm really afraid of losing my Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and 3 stats, but that's it (as far as Steam is concerned)

[EricKei]

I would think that cloud saves are safe, but look around for actual local save files. MyDocuments is where steam normally hides them iirc. Can also check on the steam forums

[lordlundar]

Saves are based on the original game code, Steam doesn't mess around with that.

Best approach: download and "install" Game Save Manager. I haven't seen a game on Steam yet that hasn't been detected by this program. It's also constantly being updated.

[emax4]

Will an mSATA really help (increase access speed) with the drive that has the game files and non-essential OS files though? I know some games like the Need for Speed series have hidden Program and Data files in my home folder, but I wasn't sure if reformatting my entire 1.5 TB drive to create a Fusion drive was worth it.

[emax4]

Actually, I'm scrapping the idea. From what I read, there's a greater disk of catastrophe when using it in OS X. I also re-downloaded and used Onyx which fixes permissions, flushes cashes, etc. I did everything, rebooted it, and the Finder is far more responsive now (even when accessing photos). The benchmark score stayed the same, but I'm happy. ^_^