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  • todlerix - Thursday, January 12, 2012 - link

    "If there's one product I wasn't as sold on, it was Corsair's Accelerator SSD series. These are SSDs in low capacities (topping out at 60GB) that are designed to be used as solid state cache but available at low prices. I'm not convinced; 60GB is actually fairly adequate for a basic system drive, and with 60GB drives available for under $100 and only getting cheaper, I'm not sure this was a market that needed servicing."

    --I thought the cache SSDs were pretty cool. SSD caching without the trouble of a reinstall or purchasing a compatible motherboard.
  • compvter - Thursday, January 12, 2012 - link

    i thought Sklavos made good argument... plus ram is cheap. Bought 16gb for my laptop and cost less than $90 (£60) which gave my laptop good boost (originally 4gb). Windows 7 can actually use a lot memory. What i have gathered the used memory that is informed in task manager is actually something that is in use, not something that is stored for later use. At this moment i have ~4gb used but nearly another ~4gb is in standby.

    So why would anyone pay for slow cache that degrades write by write when ssd drives get cheaper?
  • applestooranges - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link

    Dollar for Dollar, caching delivers "far" more performance than RAM. Just think about it, you can add 100GB of RAM, but your system still has to go to your crappy HDD for data; which means slow, slow, slow. With caching, you significantly reduce using the HDD, instead, your apps, files, data, boot are on the SSD. Regarding the SSD endurance issue, the good ones maintain the same warranty as your SSD, and if you choose a Write-Around cache mode (like in Ultrabooks), your "Cache" SSD will far outlast your "Storage" SSD.

    C'mon guys...
  • compvter - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link

    "Dollar for Dollar, caching delivers "far" more performance than RAM"
    well..yes and no. Ram speed is 10600mb/s (1333mhz ddr3) while good sata ssd is 600mb/s Sure you have to read files back to ram everytime you turn off your pc, but after that i would say Ram delivers more performance looking at those numbers. First read is naturally taxing... depends how you use your pc, and since mine is nearly always on i think i would benefit more from bigger ram, even more so if we take into account that i already have ssd as system disk.

    Im not saying caching as an idea isn't worth thinking about, but i would much rather have memory written to my ssd drive while shutting windows down, and then read it back to ram when windows is booted. For example 32gb of ram cost in amazon.com (corsair 1600mhz ddr3) 8gb/$40... so adding that 32gb as ram would cost $160 and performance would be 21x faster than ssd caches if they are connected with sata cable.
  • applestooranges - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link

    Accelerator:
    I get your point about RAM, but think of it this way, "everything" that gets loaded into RAM has to go to or from the HDD. So, adding lots of RAM with an HDD has still got some serious performance issues, and some amount of cache would have a more noticable impact.
    But, you are right, its all about finding the right balance of RAM, CacheSSD, and HDD. RAM=$5/GB, SSD=$1/GB, HDD=$0.10/GB
  • Dovahkiin - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link

    There is something called a RAMDisk...
  • applestooranges - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link

    Editor definately missing the point here... Maybe he means to use a 60GB SSD as a "boot drive"? Either way, definately missing it. Boot drives are a giant waste of SSD capacity - why would you install an OS and Apps, containting tons of completely inactive files and data, on an SSD, when you could use intelligent software to use that same 60GB SSD to dynamically cache your hot data, apps, boot, etc.? Answer: Boot drives are very inefficient, and cache drives maximize the use of expensive SSD bits. It will take awhile for reviewers to "cache up" on this new technology, which isn't all that easy since there is not alot of technical info from the cache providers like Dataplex and Intel - most misunderstood technology in SSD's. Lots of bafoons blathering about boot drives and hybrid-hdd's, but nobody with knowledge talking about caching. For Price, Performance, and Capacity - nothing comes close to an SSD cache.
  • Aikouka - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link

    Oh, I'm kind of interested in the keyboards. It's hard to find a good keyboard these days. Steelseries makes some rather durable anti-ghosting (with PS2 of course) keyboards, but they have the dreaded L-shaped Enter key! I realize that most people don't care much about the pipe-backslash key, but I do! ;)
  • Tetracycloide - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link

    I haven't had much trouble finding good keyboards these days. In fact I'd say it's easier than ever to find a quality built mechanical w/ PS2 interface stateside. Geekhack.org has a keyboard forum that's very informative as well as a shopping list by switch type that's been updated as recently as last week. The mechanical keyboard guide on overclock.net is a good learning aid as well (but their list of products is fairly out of date). On a personal note I acquired a Deck Legend tactile very recently and have been immensely happy with it so far.

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