14 DAY TRIAL // SSD caching may have been limited to just a handful of motherboards, but it looks like a certain company has created an add-in-board that can grant this capability to almost any platform with a free PCI Express x1 slot.
Solid state drives have already proven their superiority, compared to HDDs, in terms of data transfers and seeking speed, thanks to fast access times.
Consumers with enough money to spare have been actually buying sufficiently capacious drives of this type to act as primary boot drives, while an HDD is used as a secondary unit.
This has led to the Windows operating system booting in very short times and overall quick loading times as well, as long as the application is installed on the SSD.
Still, there are those that don't feel like spending too much on storage, so SSD caching technologies, like Intel's Smart Response and SilverStone's HDDBoost, have been developed.
Essentially, these allow an HDD and an SSD to be seen as a single drive by the OS and make sure that frequently used files are on the former, for quick access.
Unfortunately, the number of motherboards which support the above is fairly limited, so a Japanese company called Kuroutoshikou decided to create an adapter that any mainboard with a free PCI Express x1 slot can utilize.
The card has a Marvell 9130 SATA 6 Gbps controller and the HyperDuo technology, for easy SSD caching setup.
There is an mSATA slot for the SSD, while a SATA 6 Gbps connector makes the connection to the obligatory HDD.
It carries a price of roughly $61 and, though it is not the cheapest of all hardware, does beat some of the many RAID solutions already out in the world.
Those that want a direct look at what they are being offered need only drop by this page.