OCZ Synapse Cache SSD Solid State Drive Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
867 words · ~4 min read
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Welcome to an unboxing of an SSD that might seem confusing on the surface, but
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is actually well a little bit confusing, but very,
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very cool. This is the impossible to
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open. Okay, hold on. This is the OCZ Synapse
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Cache SSD. So, this is not intended at
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all to be used to install an operating system or any software directly on this
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drive. You're not supposed to do that. What you're supposed to do with this 64
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gig drive is you are supposed to use it
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as a cache for your hard drive. And so, you go, "Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, uh, Intel
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SRT. I've heard of that before." And I say, "No, not Intel SRT. This SSD is not
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intended for use with Intel SRT. It is actually intended for use with OCZ's
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Dataplex software. So what Dataplex does
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is it is B well okay it's very similar to how
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Intel SRT functions in that it allows your OS to manage um the caching of data
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through an SSD rather than just writing and reading everything directly to and
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from the hard drive. So, why would you use Dataplex is the question? Because
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you could just buy a Z68
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uh motherboard and then you could run
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SRT. What if you don't have a Z68 motherboard? What if you want to have an
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X79 platform, which by the way, even though it's the higherend Intel chipset,
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does not support SRT? Well, then you're starting to look into a different
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solution. So, something like Dataplex. So, why this SSD? What's special about
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this SSD? And I'll tell you guys now, the only thing that's special about this
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SSD is the durability. So, what OCZ has
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done is they've taken an SSD that is actually a 128 gig SSD, and they've gone
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and they've put 64 gigs.
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Wait, no, hold on. How does it work? No, right. They've taken a 64 gig SSD,
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that's what's actually here in the package, and then they have overprovisioned half of the capacity of
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this drive for wear leveling. So, what
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that means is it appears to your operating system as a 32 gig drive if
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you ever actually plug it in directly, which you should never do because it's a cache SSD. But the reason for that is
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that because of the limited write cycles on these SSDs, OCZ has gone, okay, well,
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let's take half of the capacity and let's squirrel it away so that because
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this is going to be used with a hard drive and it's going to have things
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cashing in and out of it all the time, we're going to make sure that it's got
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half of that capacity stored away. So that even if we have to write to it and
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write to it and write to it constantly, we are going to keep the drive safe and
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keep it functioning for a much longer period of time. So, this is a
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sandforce-based SATA 3 drive, but it
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uses a special firmware to hide half of the capacity. And then it comes with a
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license. So, I'm just going to cover up the license key, but it's on there, believe me. It comes with a license for
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the OCZ Dataplex software, which installs on Windows 7. So, let me just
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see if there's anything else that I'm missing here. Right. So, what else is
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included? We've got one of those 2 and 1/2 in to 3 and 1/2 in adapters here.
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We've got some mounting screws. If you wanted to put this in
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Oh, OCZ. OCZ. If you wanted to put it in
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a notebook, you could use these mounting screws, but you're probably Oh, no. You
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Okay, I guess you could use them to mount this to that. Okay.
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No, no, you couldn't. Okay. Well, this is not for a notebook. This is more for
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a desktop. You got a little sticker here, and you got Oh, there's the Datalex license key. I'll make sure I
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use that before I post this unboxing. So, you're also going to want to make sure that you stay tuned on my NCIXCOM
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channel because what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this drive. I'm going to run it with Intel SRT um on a WD
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black 2 TB hard drive as the boot drive. Then I'm going to run it not using SRT.
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I'm going to use the Datlex software, which by the way is supposedly, I
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haven't tried it yet, much easier to install and set up than Intel SRT. and
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we're going to see which of those two caching solutions learns faster and
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allows your system to perform better. So, I'm very excited about that. And
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thank you for checking out my unboxing of the Synapse Cache Drive from OCZ.
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