Your hard disk is slow
As you may have known or noticed, your computer may get slow frequently, trying to do an operation while your hard disk light blinks and you hear the hard disk spinning. That is because it is trying to read or write data, when you do an operation, launch an application, or launch a game. It may not only slow you down, but also can cause crashes occasionally. All said and done, spinning hard disks are still a very slow component of today’s computers. And nomatter how fast, the spinning nature of hard disk platters with the reading arm needing to move to access data on the hard disk can never match the instant-access, non-moving nature of ssds.
SSDs are tens of times faster than hard disks of course, and silent too, however they are very expensive per storage they afford – to match the capacity of your ordinary hard disks, you would need to spend quite few hundred dollars on a SSD. And after you do that, you would need to move all your programs, applications, reinstall the os and other hassles.
Enter Caching SSDs
Solution is caching SSDs. What these SSDs do, is just get plugged into your computer in addition to your existing hard disks, and cache the files, programs, games you use the most onto themselves. After 1-2 days of use, the stuff you most frequently use will be cached into the SSD, and consequently whenever you try to launch them, they will be read from SSD instead of being read from their original location in the hard disk, causing them to load up in an instant. And dont worry – caching SSDs do not move the data – they just duplicate them onto themselves. And when you write data, or change that data by saving anything, it gets duplicated to both your hard disk, original location, and the SSD, immediately. So, the SSD always keeps an up to date state of the program/file. The SSD doesnt need to be big either – a ssd in the range of 30-60 gb would easily suffice for this task. This keeps the cost of this kind of performance improvement quite low.
There are numerous caching SSD solutions in the market right now. What constitutes a SSD caching disk is basically a normal, everyday SSD, and a piece of software you install in your computer, which runs the caching scheme. Despite they come in various prices and features from different brands, not all brands and models offer everything that a ssd caching solution must offer, due to various concerns. Some want to keep selling their bigger capacity ssds and make more profits, some want to keep this kind of speeding up solutions away from being used in enterprise level, which would reduce their profits and many other reasons. Thus, one of the solutions among them excel in providing what others refuse to provide :
SanDisk ReadyCache
This little piece of gem is major memory/storage maker SanDisk’s caching solution. It is basically a 32 GB SSD coupled with the ExpressCache software which runs the caching schemes. One important thing to note is that ExpressCache software is written by the outfit which had created Diskeeper, the famous hard disk defragment/managing software. So what does ReadyCache gives that other solutions dont give ?
– ExpressCache caches more than one hard disk – so, when you plug it in, it will start caching ALL applications, programs, data, files from all of your hard disks on your computer, regardless of how many. Other solutions cache only ONE disk. This is a major plus.
– ExpressCache software also uses up to 1 Gb of system RAM as cache. This causes the most frequently accessed files, programs to speed up up to the speed of your RAM. Which is a major bonus.
– ExpressCache also has defragmenting/space consolidation built in – it will keep your disks organized, tidy and defragmented while caching. Which will contribute to both the speed of your system, but also your existing spinning hard disks, leave aside SSD. You wont have to defragment again.
– ExpressCache manages the caching whenever the system has low load. So, it wont be affecting your computer usage, and impact will be minimal.
– ExpressCache can even cache RAID volumes, as long as the SSD is not a member of a raid volume. This is a major plus which other solutions dont have.
– ReadyCache comes with a low price like $50-60 range.
– If you want, you can just format the SSD and use it a normal SSD disk.
As you can see, various very important features are generously provided to user with SanDisk’s solution. The in-built defragmenting is a feature which would need you to pay $20-30 to a defragmenting software if you wanted it decent, so there is much value there. But you cant just download/purchase ExpressCache software and use it – the software requires the serial from a ReadyCache SSD from SanDisk, and this is somewhat normal – they are selling a bundle.
Below are some resources you will find useful if youre interested in this solution :
Hardocp’s benchmarks of SanDisk’s solution – Application and gaming performance – there is huge performance increase in gaming especially.
Hardocp’s benchmarks of SanDisk’s solution – Boot up times – MUCH faster booting than normal hard disk.
Hardocp’s benchmarks of SanDisk’s solution – Boot up times – SanDisk’s own product page.
