Intel Smart Response Tech (SRT): Messiah or False Prophet?

[Lemur]

So I was having some trouble sleeping last night, and I started play-building new gaming PCs I have no intention of buying. Anyway, on one configurator they were talking about pairing up a SSD with an HD for Intel SRT tech. Hmmm? says your neighborhood lemur.

Here's what Anandtech has to say about the technology.

Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT) is an interesting addition to the mix. For starters, it's not going to make your high end SSD obsolete. You'll still get better overall performance by grabbing a large (80-160GB+) SSD, putting your OS + applications on it, and manually moving all of your large media files to a separate hard drive. What SRT does offer however is a stepping stone to a full blown SSD + HDD setup and a solution that doesn't require end user management. You don't get the same performance as a large dedicated SSD, but you can turn any hard drive into a much higher performing storage device. Paired with a 20GB SLC SSD cache, I could turn a 4-year-old 1TB hard drive into something that was 41% faster than a VelociRaptor.

Further reading with HardOCP and LegitReviews.

So is this the real deal? I've shied away from thinking about SSDs because of the crazy price tag. Sure, I'd love to have my OS and all of my games on a super-fast flash drive, but a large-capacity SSD is like a thousand bucks all by itself.

But if I can pair up a 2-terabyte monster WD drive with, say, a 60-gig SSD drive acting as a cache ... can I have my cake and eat it too?

Has any Orgah gotten any hands-on time with an SRT config?