NVMe support, is Promocache viable?

[GrahamGo]

Hi, I have been trying all day to decide on a solution to a small self imposed problem. I have an older i7 + 256GB SATA SSD + 8 GB ram system. The motherboard does not support a native NVMe M2 drive. But I would like to speed things up if possible by adding a PCIe adaptor + Samsung 256gb EVO NVMe drive. This should add a high-speed SSD. Question is, how best to utilize it?

I know that I can put Windows 10 on the NVme drive. However, it appears that at bootup time the BIOS cannot recognize this drive, so it won't boot up, so it's not an option. So, how best to utilize this fast drive?

I know that I can move parts of windows 10 to this new drive such as the User area, and Program files, pagefile location etc. But is this a good option?

Now I have found Promocache. I have read through this forum but cannot seem to find the answer. So may I ask a question. Can Promocache be utilized to provide a useful boost to my system?

[KootchieKoo]

You can make a BOOTABLE Windows installation on your Samsung NVMe drive using this method:

https://www.win-raid.com/t2375f50-Guide ... ethod.html

This method works for older boards that do not natively support NVMe. I am about to order a Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD and use this method on my "older" Haswell Z87 system.

[Support]

Sorry for the late reply because we were on public holiday.
Yes, PrimoCache can utilize any drives as long as they can be recognized by Windows.

[BonzaiDuck]

Here's an Anvil benchmark result for an SATA SSD cached to an NVME M.2 SSD. Deferred writes are enabled. Otherwise, the Sequential Write rate would reflect the spec expectations for the SATA SSD. Since it is the speed of the caching volume that counts more toward these results, you would still have a pretty darn good performance boost for an SATA HDD:



Here's what happens when you create a two-tiered cache featuring both RAM-caching and NVME-SSD-caching for an SATA SSD. Notice the difference between the 4K random read-rate in the previous screenie compared to this one. The lackluster 4K stock/native rate for reading a 960 EVO SSD cache shows the promise we have for the Intel 3D XPoint devices, which have considerably faster 4K random rates. So these values seem to eliminate that problem for NVME by adding the RAM-cache tier: