Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide

SSD  Smart Response Technology is simply using a small SSD drive for your system cache while still having all your main files on a traditional mechanical hard drive. What that means is you get the best of both worlds. Speed and capacity. Great access speeds for day to day usages via the SSD and the bulk storage benefits of your traditional drive for all your applications and files from the mechanical hard drive. SSD do not suffer from the latency issues that mechanical hard drives do due to the platters having to spin up first, and then have the head travel to a specific data track. Just think of an old vinyl long playing album and the pick up arm having to travel to a particular track before it can play the song.

Installing and setting up a SSD as your system cache is simple and this guide will walk you through the process in simple logical steps. The first couple of steps are done in the BIOS and the reminder will be completed in your Operating System. To enable Smart SSD cache will requires that the SATA controller be set to RAID mode via the system BIOS. And that you install the Intel® Smart Response Technology which is an Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (RST) caching feature.  It allows a user to configure computer systems with an SSD used as cache memory between the hard disk drive and system memory. This guide is not suitable for AMD based systems.

System requirements

For a system to support Intel Smart Response Technology it must have the following as a minimum requirement:

• Intel® Z68, X79 Express Chipset-based desktop board
• Intel® Core™ Processor in the LGA 1155 package, LGA 2011 package
• System BIOS with SATA mode set to RAID
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology software 10.5 version release or later
• Single hard disk drive or multiple drives in a single RAID volume
• Solid State Drive (SSD) with a minimum capacity of 18.6GB
• Operating system: Microsoft Windows* Vista 32-bit Edition and 64-bit Edition, Microsoft Windows* 7 32-bit Edition and 64-bit

Part I BIOS

Configure SATA Mode in BIOS setup

1. Press the F2 key during boot up to enter the BIOS setup menu.

2. Go to Configuration SATA Drives.

3. Select the setting for SATA Mode and change the value to RAID.
4. Press the F10 and select yes to save settings and restart the system.

Part 2 Operating System

5. You may now begin installation of the operating system on the drive (or RAID volume).

6. Install all required device drivers.

7. Install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology software version 10.5 or later.

Part 3 Intel RST Settings

Enabling Intel Smart Response Technology

8. Run the Intel RST software through the All Programs menu or the task bar icon.
9. Click Enable acceleration either under the Status or Accelerate menu.

10. Select the SSD to be used as a cache device.

11. Select the size from the SSD to be allocated for the cache memorybetween 18.6 and 64 GB

12. Select the drive (or RAID volume) to be accelerated. It is highly recommended to accelerate the system volume or system disk for maximum performance.

13. Select the acceleration mode. By default, Enhanced mode is selected. There are two options, Enhanced mode: Acceleration is optimized for data protection, and Maximized mode: Acceleration is optimized for input/output performance.

14. Click OK.

The page refreshes and reports the new acceleration configuration in the Acceleration View.

Your system is now successfully configured with the Intel Smart Response Technology.