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    Formatting and mounting the ExpressCache drive - is it safe?

    Discussion in 'Samsung' started by c0LdFire, Jun 23, 2012.

  1. c0LdFire

    c0LdFire Notebook Enthusiast

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    I recently put a Crucial M4 512gb SSD in my NP700Z7C-S01US. This SSD is a ton faster then the ExpressCache drive, so I didn't re-enable it and kept the driver uninstalled.

    Using EaseUS Partition Master, though, I can see the 8GB of unallocated space sitting on that drive. Has anyone that has ExpressCache disabled tried to play with that space? I'm wanting to format it as NTFS and use it for Windows' swap file to put it to good use, but I'm unsure if it is safe to do so or not. I don't know what the risks are if I format that thing.

    Any ideas or insight? :)
     
    c0LdFire, Jun 23, 2012
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  2. c0LdFire

    c0LdFire Notebook Enthusiast

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    I took the plunge and tried to do it. No problems at all. It's slower then I expected, but I'm using it to run Windows' swap file to keep the stress off my SSD and it should be fine for that purpose.
     
    c0LdFire, Jun 23, 2012
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  3. AlexKlein

    AlexKlein Newbie

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    Hi C0LdFire,

    Notebooks with an SSD as the primary hard drive are in a higher price bracket because they offer higher performance then those with an IDE drive. ExpressCache technology by Condusiv Technologies is licensed by various OEMs in order to allow them to offer a high performance notebook at a fraction of the cost of a pure SSD system.

    Based on your particular needs, it seems it would have been more cost-effective to purchase a notebook with an SSD as the primary hard drive.

    Alex
    Condusiv Technologies
     
    AlexKlein, Jun 29, 2012
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  4. spincel

    spincel Notebook Consultant

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    No problem at all. Just think it as another drive but was soldered in the board. The speed will be SATA 3GB/s (or maximum at 200 MB/s), but that would be enough for pagefile.
     
    spincel, Jul 2, 2012
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  5. kimtyson

    kimtyson Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm thinking that with 8Gb of RAM, you won't be using a pagefile much at all. In addition, you don't want the pagefile on the slower hard drive, the Expresscache in this case. Leave the pagefile on the faster SSD and let Windows 7 manage it. That will be your best option for configuration on this machine.
     
    kimtyson, Jul 3, 2012
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