SanDisk Desktop Caching SSD - ReadyCache 32 GB SATA 3 Solid State Drive $37.99 w/ FSSS @ Amazon

I have been tracking this on CCC and it has hit an all time low down from $49.99. I've read good reviews and decided to give it a try.

Please read the specs before purchasing. This is NOT a regular SSD that can replace any other hard drive. The purpose of this SSD is to act as a Cache in tandem with your existing hard drive. It allows your system to start up faster by housing start up files for quicker access. While it states that in works with Win 7, Sandisk reports it compatible with Win 8 also.

Amazon Link

Thanks OP, looks interesting. The reviews at Newegg, where it's still $50, are similarly positive. A detailed reviewed at HardOCP also gave it very positive marks in most of their benchmarks.

With SSD chips falling in price, this looks like a relatively cost-effective way to speed up an "older" PC. Comparing apples to oranges, I wonder how the performance increase from this compares to a hybrid SSD like the Seagate Momentus XT. The Momentus XT has only 4GB-8Gb of SSD storage, depending on the model.

The SSD-as-Cache idea has been around for awhile. Silverstone made a thing called the HDDBoost; it was sorta equivalent to the logic controller from the SanDisk device, minus the SSD. With the HDDBoost, you had to provide the SSD. The beauty of their device (besides that you could make the Cache as large as you could afford) was that it worked in machines running older operating systems, namely WinXP---the sort of computer that could REALLY benefit from an SSD speed boost. I bought one and, for whatever reason, sadly could simply not get it to work in my old XP machine. It wouldn't boot at all.