On Wednesday 26 Jun 2013 01:17:05 Stroller wrote: > On 25 June 2013, at 20:10, Mick wrote: > > ... > > I am considering my options for a new rig destined to last a few years > > and one of the Dell machines on offer has this Intel SRT fake-raid > > feature, which after some cursory googling, I am not entirely sure will > > work with Linux. > > Is it possible you could be thinking of a "hybrid" drive? > > These combine a conventional spinning-platter hard-drive with a smaller > SSD, and the windows drivers cache most frequently used files from the > hard-drive on the SSD.
No, as I understand it Intel's SRT is not a hybrid drive - but functions similarly when using two seperate drives: 1 SSD for caching and any combo of conventional spinning drives. > I *think* that these hybrid drives connect to the PC with a single SATA > cable, and I believe that they appear to Linux as two separate drives - > /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. You should be able to check this with the google. > > Assuming my understanding is correct, you should be able to use these > drives with Linux's SSD caching features - dm-cache or Bcache. > > http://www.h-online.com/open/features/What-s-new-in-Linux-3-9-1845705.html > > http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM2ODM Thanks Stroller! Good pointers. Yes, it's made it in the kernel and indeed bcache is the linux equivalent to SRT. Now, I'm not sure how it'll co-work with Intel's SRT, or if I should just switch it off and use bcache independently of the MoBo's SRT feature. In which case, I might as well buy a machine that does not have all this unnecessary for me technology. Hmmm ... some more thinking required. -- Regards, Mick
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