SSDCache
SSDCache is driver software designed to combine the advantages of hard disk drives and solid state drives (SSDs). We are currently preparing the Mac OS X version for a semi-public beta test starting near the end of 2011, with Linux and Microsoft Windows versions following later.
If you would like to be notified when the software is widely available, or if you would like to participate in the test, please register your interest or get in touch via email.
Why solid state drives
Although computer processing power has been continually increasing, the speed of the most popular storage medium, hard disk drives, has not kept up. In fact, when waiting for a computer to complete a task such as starting the operating system or applications, the hard disk is usually the bottleneck nowadays. Hard disks store data on spinning platters, which causes a delay when trying to access a piece of data, as it needs to rotate into position under the read/write head.
Solid state drives use flash memory chips to store information, similar to USB sticks and memory cards. There are no rotating platters to wait for, so data retrieval is fast. However, SSDs are about 20 to 50 times more expensive than hard disks with the same capacity. Storing large amounts of data such as photos and videos therefore quickly becomes very expensive.
How SSDCache works
SSDCache is software that will copy data that is most frequently accessed on your hard disk to a much smaller solid state disk. Whenever this data is requested, it will be read from the SSD, which is quicker than it would be from the hard disk. Any changes to the data will be saved on both the hard disk and the solid state disk. SSDCache continually updates the cached data based on actual use. It is therefore no longer necessary to manually split your data between the fast SSD and the slow hard disk.
We are currently accepting pre-registrations for testing SSDCache. We will open up the testing programme progressively from March/April 2011. We are starting off our beta testing on the Mac OS X operating system, with a view to expand to Windows and Linux in the summer. If you are interested, please fill in the form, leaving your email address so we can get back to you in the next few weeks.
About us
SSDCache is developed and operated by Phillip Jordan & Laura Dennis. We are currently based in Vienna, Austria. We welcome any comments or questions you may have in both English and German at info@ssdcache.com You can follow Phil on twitter: @pmjordan.