SilverStone HDDBoost Review

XP Start Up

HDDBoost = WD 320GD HDD + Kingston SSDNow 40GB

When it comes to hard drive performance there is one area that even the most oblivious user notices: how long it takes to load the Operating System. For our tests the clock starts as soon as the system “beeps” and stops when our Anti-Virus splash screen disappears. While all the other tests were run with a streamlined XP image this particular image is the test bed's “day to day” OS and it has accumulated a lot of crud over the months from installs and removals. We chose the Anti-Virus splash screen as our finish line as it is the last program to be loaded on start up.

Note that we ran the tests with and without Sync done to show if the HDDBoost itself adds any unnecessary overhead


The first test here really does look pretty good. Basically, the addition of an inexpensive SSD allows an older, extremely fragmented hard drive to perform nearly at the level as one of the fastest spindle-based drives on the market.

Adobe CS3 Load Time

HDDBoost = WD 320GD HDD + Kingston SSDNow 40GB

Photoshop is a notoriously slow loading program under the best of circumstances, but when you add in a bunch of extra brushes and thesuch you get a really great torture test which can bring even the best of the best to their knees. Let’s see how our review unit faired in the Adobe crucible!


Once again we can see that this amazing little piece of technology can take a below average hard drive and turn it into a real winner.