SilverStone HDDBoost Review

SilverStone has pioneered a whole new type of hardware in the HDDBoost. The Idea is simple the execution is very well done and overall is quite a nice product. Installing it was far simpler than I had expected and there was no additional input really needed. The controller simply takes over and copies the first primary part of the drive to the SSD and that allows the SSD to use its superior read speed while treating the HDD as a storehouse for large files and ones that are not accessed as often.

Most people with SSDs find themselves using a large rotational drive for games, movies etc. but this requires making sure they install to the proper drive and have shortcuts pointed at the proper location.  The true beauty of the HDDBoost is its seamless integration of this two drive arrangement; simply add the HDDboost with an SSD at anytime with no need at all for a re-format.

An unexpected plus is that the system got steadily faster over time as it learned what we used on a regular basis.  For instance our Vantage went up progressively from week to week. 

A trade-off is made when it comes to access times.  While we would have expected access times to be somewhere between SSD and HDD it would seem the final speeds to be only slightly faster than the Seagates access time of 14ms.  Transfer and loading is really what dictates the perception of speed so we hardly doubt anyone will notice.

And now for our ever popular list of good things and bad things.

Instantly usable, no re-install of O.S.
Works behind the scenes no input needed.
Big increase in most desktop performance.
Improved boot times.
Single drive solution in Windows

There is a small hit in access times, still faster than the reference drive.
Could look less like a prototype.
Not all benches showed increase, Windows was more responsive though.
Took a few days to see benefits. Got faster over time.

We would like to thank SilverStone for making this review possible.