SilverStone HDDBoost Review

Software & Synchronization

The HDDBoost Utility which you can download from SilverStone’s website is very basic and totalitarian in its approach to things. At its most basic level, this free utility tells you exactly what your HDDBoost is doing at a given time.

Monitoring is definitely an added benefit for this software but unfortunately it has no manual or how to guide to speak of so you are left wondering exactly what some of the options actually do. However, we liked the fact that you can instantly see not only what drives are attached but what their serial numbers are.


As mentioned this utility will not only tell you what the HDDBoost is doing but how far along in the synchronizing process it currently is. Its other main purpose of this is to act as a pain free way of updating the firmware on your HDDBoost. Basically, all you need to do is download the firmware file to any attached storage device, make sure the unit is not in the process of synchronization and hit “load” up in the left hand corner. After you go through a few simple steps, it will update the firmware and when finished ask you to reboot the device so the new firmware can be implemented.


While there are plenty of good things to say, this is not a perfect application for the simple reason that it is unclear exactly how you can manually trigger synchronization. We assume that hitting the “start” button starts the process and “stop” stops it even though it is fairly obvious what process you are starting and stopping.

The only other minor annoyance we have with this utility is the fact that it does not include a method of polling the SMART data from the connected drives. This is a missed opportunity as you really will have no way of knowing the condition of your drives without yanking them from the HDDBoost and plugging them back into the motherboard.

All in all, we like this nifty little utility but it does need either a FAQ or a simple “how to” guide. It is simple yet effective and above all else it gets the job done.

What is Synchronization?

Upon reboot (or when a user manually triggers a synchronization request via the software), the HDDBoost checks the size of the connected SSD and goes about copying and cloning that same amount of data from the Hard Drive to it. This is much like what your favourite cloning software does, but it is being done at a hardware level much like a RAID 1 array and is doing it seamlessly, without your system’s knowledge or consent. By the same token it is not like a RAID 1 array as the Solid State Drive does not need to be the same size as the Hard Disk Drive.

SilverStone calls this process Synchronization as that is exactly what it is. If you swap in a bigger or smaller SSD, the HDDBoost will simply use the new drive’s size for its clone parameters. It does not care how big the hard drive is as it is only taking (up to) the amount that the solid state drive can store and no more. Obviously, if you have less data on the hard drive than the total amount of storage available on the Solid State drive, it will clone all the data and then stop. This is the theory that makes this such a powerful unit as you get the best benfits and performance of a RAID 1 without the downside of needing a 1:1 storage capacity across both drives.

Of course, once you install a program you are going to have to either reboot or do a manual synchronization to get any of the solid state performance. This is because the programs are still primarily installed onto the HDD and the info needed to allow the SSD to boost performance is only passed over during synchronization. This to us does add an extra layer of hassle factor to the unit, but it is certainly not a deal breaker.

For those of you interested it took about half an hour for synchronization to complete on our Kingston SSDNow V 40GB but the process was completely transparent to the user. Basically, you can use your system as normal while this process is going on behind the scenes. If you reboot the system while sync is happening it will just resume upon your next reboot.