EliteBytes International, a software research and development company founded in Germany has released VeloSSD 2012 which it claims to be the first SSD cache product that is available independent of hardware. The software works by using an SSD as a write-back cache for one or more hard disks to provide SSD-like performance on write operations as well as frequently read data.
This software comes with a few significant features over other caching solutions, with the main one being the ability to use any SSD for the cache and any hard disk as the target, such as a secondary data HDD where the user already has their OS on an SSD. At present, all SSDs sold as a cache SSD restrict the caching software to the bundled SSD only and most (if not all) restrict the target to the bootable HDD only. In the VeloSSD Professional version and above, it is also possible to use the one SSD as a cache towards multiple hard disks.
VeloSSD supports Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Server editions up to 2008 R2, including 64-bit. It can accelerate RAID, fibre channel LUN, SAN and iSCSI volumes and is also compatible with Dynamic, GPT and boot volumes. It also supports storing its cache on SSDs in a RAID array.
For those who already have an SSD as their boot volume or do not wish to use the full SSD for the cache, the software creates a user-defined cache size as a file on the SSD. This means that spare capacity of the existing boot SSD can be used as a cache towards one or more hard disk volumes.
The software is available in 4 editions - Personal, Professional, Enterprise and Datacenter. The personal edition allows for up to a 64GB cache, 1 cacheable volume and single-threaded and the professional edition allows for up to a 256GB cache, 4 cacheable volumes and multi-threading. Both are priced at €9.99 and €19.99, respectively and support volumes up to 2TB in size. Further info on the editions can be viewed here.
A trial version of VeloSSD 2012 can be downloaded here. As with any other SSD caching software product, we strongly recommend making a full backup of the target volume(s) before installing the software. Feel free to discuss and ask questions about VeloSSD on their new support forum on Myce.
