- 2.5"
- 128GB (64GB cache capacity)
- SATA III
Easy Way to get Almost-SSD performance
02/20/2014
This review is from: Manufacturer Recertified OCZ Synapse Cache 2.5" 128GB (64GB cache capacity) SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SYN-25SAT3-128G
Pros:
Increases apparent system responsiveness
Speeds up boot process
Speeds up commonly-used applications
Cons:
Will work on only one physical HDD, which must also be the boot drive (though it will cache all partitions)
2 TB HDD cache limit
Overall Review:
I use these on older GA-770UD3 and MSI KA9N Neo V2 MBs and they result in much snappier performance and response.
Many complain that they though they were buying a cheap 128 GB SSD, but it's plainly stated that the drive is a 64 GB *cache*; the other 64 GB is held in reserve because SSDs essentially "wear out.". Thus, this thing will probably outlast me.
Some people dislike the NVELO DataPlex software and the fact that it requires a serial number. but that's not an issue for me. Care needs to be taken with backups, however: Acornis (along with its Segate and Western Digital versions) cannot clone an HDD that uses this as cache because Acronis does the cloning under a linux kernel. Thus, you'll have to uninstall DataPlex to clone a drive. Uninstalling and reinstalling DataPlex is a minor annoyance because doing either requires a reboot. Macrium Reflect doesn't seem to have this limitation, however, and plays fine with the cache drive.
My system has a second boot drive for my kid's games. The good news is that no matter where they go, nothing on the cached drive can be "seen" by the non-cashed drive and so security is a bit enhanced. The non-cached drive CAN be seen by the cached drive. On occasions that I can't fully characterize, DataPlex must resync the cache drive. I don't fully understand why this happens, but it's notvery common and, as long as I let it do its thing, all is just fine. If the re-sync is aborted, DataPlex must be uninstalled, then reinstalled and the cache must be completely reinitialized thus temporarily losing any speed-up benefit because all cached files on the SSD are removed. This doesn't damage any data on your HDD, it simply re-starts the caching process.
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- Kimberly E.
-
Verified Owner
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Owned For:
1 month to 1 year
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