Crucial's Newly Announced Drive Aims To Mix SSD Speeds With HDD Storage Capabilities
Crucial's Newly Announced Drive Aims To Mix SSD Speeds With HDD Storage Capabilities
Posted 01/05/2012 at 12:08pm
| by Brad Chacos
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There’s no denying that SSDs are blazing fast and an all-around pleasure to have in your system, but for many folks, being limited to 128GB or 256GB just isn’t going to cut it. Enter Crucial: today, the memory maker announced the “Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution,” which hopes to solve that problem (as the name implies). It could’ve been called the “SSD Band-Aid;” it’s basically an itty-bitty SSD that teams up with your HDD to deliver quick access speeds while keeping the high storage capabilities of traditional drives intact.
The Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution is a 50GB Crucial m4 SSD that ships with a 3.5-inch adapter bracket and some cache software. Setup sounds pretty easy: connect the SSD to your mobo with a SATA cable, then install the software and get to work. The clever-sounding software tricks your computer into thinking both drives are a single storage system and automatically drops your most-used files onto the SSD. The things you use most often get the full SSD speed boosting treatment, while everything else stays sitting on your HDD, still fully accessible.
Robert Wheadon, Crucial’s worldwide product manager, calls the product “a compelling and affordable upgrade solution." We’d be inclined to agree, except, um, Crucial left pricing details out of its press release. The Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution is expected to start shipping sometime in the first quarter.
At first glance, it certainly seems like an intriguing little product for those who can’t abide the abysmally small storage space found in current SSDs and don't want to swap out their current HDD for a pricey hybrid drive. Is this something you would pick up assuming the price is right?
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zepontiff
January 06, 2012 at 11:44am
A new type of this crap comes out every month it seems. Just buy an SSD and manage it. Its worth it.
I just put 2 SSD in one RAID Array and 2 standard hdd in another RAID array. I'm quite pleased so far.
torquemator
January 06, 2012 at 6:26am
Meh. This is just software. Sure, they're selling a SSD drive with it, but the item that really gets the job done is the software. I think they'd be better served to sell the software (to work with ANY SSD drive you already have) for about $10, for digital download, and THEN also offer to upsell you an SSD (in a variety of sizes) for a competitive street price.
I already have two 128 GB SSDs. I'd _love_ to be able to pair one, or both, of them with my 1.5TB drive. Or better yet, pair the two 128 GB SSDs using this software, to get 256 GB of SSD power for half the price (plus, of course, the $10 for the software).
Neat idea. Poor execution. Come on Crucial, you're more innovative than this!
kixofmyg0t
January 05, 2012 at 11:04pm
Would much rather have a 64GB M4 as a boot drive and 2 600GB VelociRaptors in RAID 0 for games and programs.
wkstar
January 05, 2012 at 6:43pm
This will be useless by autumn, when the 480 Gig SSD cost $ 250.oo
AntonioGarrison
January 05, 2012 at 2:30pm
I don't see this staying around or being a very good alternative. I'll save my money on this and wait for SSD's to become more affordable.
Shalbatana
January 05, 2012 at 1:16pm
Yes I would buy this, assuming it was cheap enough for those of us who want to jump on that speedier bandwagon but couldn't afford a full SSD solution. It's basically like a ramdrive.
What I'm wondering is if it could be used on older systems, where one can't add more ram for a ram for ram caching.
If it's affordable and allows someone who has an older system to get the increase in speed without having to upgrade their entire system I think it's a great idea.
blkpanthr
January 05, 2012 at 12:49pm
meh....its software which means it needs drivers so it wont speed up boot times..
chipmunkofdoom2
January 05, 2012 at 1:20pm
... how often are you rebooting your computer? I don't know about you, but my desktop gets rebooted once a month if that.
It's called a compromise.. get everything sped up except for booting and keep your continuity of storage, or sacrifice your space just for the fast boot times. I'd prefer this solution to a standard SSD any day. If that doesn't appeal to you, you're free to have half a dozen hard drives and fiddle around with them as much as you want.
bloodgain
January 05, 2012 at 1:59pm
Indeed. This sounds a bit like an SSD built-in solution to compete with Intel's Smart Response and/or the Highpoint RocketHybrid (which has seen mixed reviews). If it's cheap enough, I'm sure it'll be a good option for people who are upgrading an existing system and don't want to buy a big enough SSD to boot from. For someone building a new system, though, I doubt this is a better option than Intel's chipset-based SSD caching.
Danno25002
January 05, 2012 at 2:25pm
SRT on the Z68 was the first thing that came to mind. I have a 64GB OCZ on Z68 board. I love it! But, depending on the price, you're right, this is a better solution. Especially since you are not limited to the 1155 socket this way.
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