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Step-by-step guide to setting up SSD caching on Z68 and Z77

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Let me revive this old thread.

A couple of years ago I built (for a friend) an Asus P8Z68V (BIOS 0902) and used a Crucial M4 64Gig SSD cached (IRST-enhanced) to a 1Tb Hitachi spinner using Win7/64 HP.

It ran like greased lightning. Along the way (a long time later), something happened and the cache became dissociated and the system was pretty slow. When I re-associated the cache, the system became unstable. I updated the firmware on the Crucial M4 SSD but it made no difference in system stability.

I have been unable to restore stability and am considering a complete rebuild as I believe we have all data backed up.

The problem is that I can't find my notes and have forgotten how to go about the process! Some of the links I used to educate myself at the time no longer work either.

I'm thinking to do this:
1) get latest BIOS, chipset, and drivers
2) set BIOS to raid, format and reinstall Win7, then reinstall the apps.

If I format, I'll lose the chipset data, so I don't know how to install the chipset drivers first.

What would be the logical workflow to accomplish my task and restore this system to its former glory?
 
What size SSD? Do you need to use the caching? Process is still in the first post so that would be where I would look...outside of that, you have the process down.
 
It's a 64GB SSD. I set up caching to make her as fast a system as I could. If that reduces stability, I'd just install Win7 in AHCI mode at the cost of some system speed. But that defeats the purpose of adding the SSD drive in the first place.

It worked great for a long time. But then the grandkids got into it, playing games, and going who knows where. I thought it odd that IRST would report the SSD as being dissociated. Hadn't seen that before, but after I reassociated the SSD, the stability issues became much worse than before.

So I'd like to redo the system as before and hopefully keep the kids off the machine. ;)

I'll try to update the BIOS before I begin the process of formatting the drive and reinstalling Win7. Then install the chipset drivers, IRST, and the rest of the system drivers.
 
As long as I reinstall the OS to the spinner under RAID, I can install the IRST drivers and cache the SSD at any time, right?
 
I think so, yes.

Personally, with that sized SSD, I would just install your OS on it and a couple of frequently used applications and get faster speeds that way. W7 can be sized down quite a bit post install (shrinking page file, stopping restores and hibernation to name 3 things). So unless you have games you want on the SSD, it should eat up quite a few frequently used applications and even a game or so.
 
I considered that during the build, but given the installation and that many programs like to put data on the C:\ drive, I thought it would minimize my time requirements if I install the OS and programs on a large (1 TB Hitachi spinner) and use the SSD to cache the spinner. Otherwise I would have to continually monitor the system and manually move data to keep the SSD from running short of space. At the time I built that system (2 years ago), large SSD were still pretty expensive. (they may still be, I haven't shopped the market lately).

Matter of fact, I'm running into that same issue on my 80GB SSD c:\ drive on my Win7 system (about 3 years old). I need to track down the space hogs and move or delete them. But that takes time I need to spend elsewhere at the present. ;) I moved to the SSD after having two C:\ drive failures within the span of 12 months. :bang head
 
Whoa. Prices surely have dropped. I might propose a rebuild using that drive in lieu of the cached spinner and move the spinner to one of the data drives. Overkill on data, but whatever. ;)

That would alleviate any issues with IRST (unless I'm just unlucky in that regard) and I could just set it up in AHCI mode in a normal manner.

Hmm. Maybe I should do a little research on the current SSD market. :D
 
speedlever said:
Continuing this discussion, wouldn't MLC be preferable to TLC from both a performance and durability perspective? I think there's about $50 difference in cost compared to the one you linked.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W00ZD1539
Click to expand...
It seems like that, yes. However, there were a couple of sites that did testing and they wrote an INSANE anoount data constantly for 2.5 months or so until the drive finally crapped out. I am more than certain your uses will not come close to theirs and will live a long and happy life. If it dies, it will not be because of writes. :thup:
 
Well, if the friend doesn't want to ante up for one of those large SSDs, I'll probably just rebuild it as before, but with updated BIOS and drivers.
 
speedlever said:
Just out of curiosity, has IRST been unstable for others too?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure yet. I had what I thought were RAM problems on my HTPC (random IRQ Not less than or equal errors), but after your post mentioning instability, I figured I'd see if disabling IRST helped. Indeed, I haven't had a crash since, but it has only been ~24 hours. I'll try to remember to report back in a week or so whether it's still stable.

EDIT - As a side note, I don't think it's IRST technology per se, it's probably the EVGA Z77 Stinger (bad BIOS implementation, no fixes despite promises they'd address issues) and/or the Vertex 2.
 
Have been trying to get this RST accelerate thing to work for months. Followed the suggestions of editing the registry, then installing the software, but the accelerate option still doesn't show up. I've only ever seen the accelerate option available to me once, but when I press ok, it gave me some sort of error and then the accelerate tab is gone again.

Any suggestions? I am on a Shuttle XPC sz68R5, my 32gb SSD is on its MSATA port.
 
Just a quick update, after click through numerous forums, one idea worked.

it is to goto Disk management, delete the SSD's volume. Then the Intel RST program immediately let me pick accelerate option.

Not sensing too much of a performance increase right now though.
 
it takes a while for the cache to fill with your frequently used stuff, I think.
 
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