On Sat, 21 May 2011 16:16:05 -0500, Trevor Cordes wrote:
On 2011-05-21 Dan Martin wrote:
Is there a way of making your own hybrid? It would be nice to have a 32GB SSD (or several in a RAID) that would act as a cache to slower drives. Some logic would be needed to ensure that the most stale info is written to the mechanical HD when resources were available.
I don't think there is such a thing yet, though the linux community could/would probably come up with something in software if there was a benefit to it. However, the cheaper main RAM gets, the less argument you have for needing a middle SSD cache layer.
On a similar note, I've been thinking a lot about using cheap/small SSD's for swap and journal duty. FS journal activity that happens on all mainstream FS's now could benefit from moving off the same spindles the data is on. Has anyone played with this idea? I'm thinking it would really enhance the speed of things like numerous small file writes. _______________________________________________
Checkout the Intel Sandybridge Z68 chipset which has an SSD caching feature. It will take up to 64GB of SSD as an 'inline' cache (that is not separate drives in OS). Along with that chipset release Intel released a 20GB SLC mSATA SSD which perfectly fits the bill there. Get a Z68 motherboard and a 'small' SSD in mSATA format and you have a nifty SSD cache for your spinning metal without wasting a SATA port.
I just heard about it myself and haven't played with it (or will ever play with it) but it sounds like an interesting option.