Question Is PrimoCache worth it?

[Collider]

Depends entirely on the size of your cache.

I'd probably host both of those on an SSD myself.

By the time you had a cache large enough to host a VM you'd be just about as well off to buy a cheap, dedicated small SSD.

SQL, depends on the size of the DB.

If it's small (a couple gigs or less) absolutely. If it's big, again, I'd get an SSD for it.

I actually plan to store the DB on an NVME SSD drive, so I'm wondering if L1 (Ram) cache could improve performance beyond NVME.

 

[Collider]

Oops, sry posted in the wrong thread and there's no option to delete...

Came a cross this FS model as well:
S3900-24T4S Fanless 24-Port 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Stackable Managed Switch with 4 10Gb SFP+ Uplinks

 

[cbn]

It's a lifetime license, so the single PC option is not a lot of money spent or wasted.

Yep, it is a lifetime license and if the user sells the PC (or if the PC breaks) the license can be transferred to another PC up to 5 times (for the consumer license) after a transfer request is made via email.

https://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/license-policies.html

License Limitations and Policies

A single license can only activate a specified number of computers. Once a computer is successfully activated, it will be permanently tied to this license and cannot be deactivated even in future you will uninstall the licensed product from this computer. When a license has already activated the maximum number of computers permitted, it cannot activate other computers any more.
You can do the activation process on an activated computer unlimited times as long as you didn't change the computer's motherboard. These operations will not consume the license. So you don't have to worry when you reinstall operating systems. Likewise, activations in multiple operating systems installed in one same computer are only counted as one single computer activation.
Virtual machines are treated as standalone physical computers, so they also consume licenses.
Considering the requirement of computer replacement, now we offer transferring licenses to new computers of yours. When you replace the computer's motherboard or the whole computer, you may email us for the license transfer request. We will complete the deactivation process, update the license and then inform you. Each license can be updated up to 5 times (Personal License) / 3 times (Business License), except otherwise agreed by the contract.

 

[AnandTechGuy]

Came across this thread and found it very useful. Now considering PrimoCache.

Can PrimoCache speed up SQL Database reads / writes?

Also how about hosting VMs?

Not a directly applicable reply really, but thought I'd add my experiences.

I was [was because I'm having to use MacOs for work currently] developing Java solutions using Eclipse IDE, running on an HDD. I had considered a possibility of moving to SSD - self-funded.

Did some tests.

Using SSD, searches/scans across the codebase were much faster - as was general machine operation of course.

However, using a 4GB L1 cache [memory] with PRIMOCACHE, even on HDD, obliterated those results, scan results were almost instant.

So, for code development PrimoCache, with in-memory cache, was awesome.

For larger datasets, your SQL DB, then L1 is unlikely to be as useful - unless you have gargantuan RAM, but SSD cache for HDD should bear fruits!

Try it!

 

[0ldman79]

I still use L1 on my SSD and hard drives even when I don't have an SSD available for L2.

Makes a huge difference in user performance. Of course drive read/writes are still the same in the background, but I'm not waiting for the machine any more. A 2 gig L1 means moving a 1.5GB video file from C: to D: takes about 1 user second and everything is done in the background. The IO is incredibly fast. My SATA SSD gives NVME results up to 4GB (1GB on my Skylake laptop).

It is virtually indistinguishable from Samsung RAPID, only I can tune Primocache to match my system. The Sandy Bridge laptop has 20gigs of RAM, the system is actually limited to 16gigs, so 4gigs are dedicated as an L1 in Primocache (listed as hidden memory).

In some regards my old Sandy Bridge laptop with a mechanical drive and a 60gig OCZ is more responsive than my Skylake with a WD 1TB Blue 3D.

If nothing else I figure the write buffer on the SSD further limits small writes burning through my SSD and it removes the IO bottleneck from the mechanical drive I use for storage.

 

[Collider]

Not a directly applicable reply really, but thought I'd add my experiences.

I was [was because I'm having to use MacOs for work currently] developing Java solutions using Eclipse IDE, running on an HDD. I had considered a possibility of moving to SSD - self-funded.

Did some tests.

Using SSD, searches/scans across the codebase were much faster - as was general machine operation of course.

However, using a 4GB L1 cache [memory] with PRIMOCACHE, even on HDD, obliterated those results, scan results were almost instant.

So, for code development PrimoCache, with in-memory cache, was awesome.

For larger datasets, your SQL DB, then L1 is unlikely to be as useful - unless you have gargantuan RAM, but SSD cache for HDD should bear fruits!

Try it!

Nice! Thanks for sharing this.

I also code in JAVA & C# and use a EVO 950 PRO on PCIE2.0 motherboard to store my code files. But it seems that L1 cache will boost performance even more.

I'm very intrigued and can't wait to have some spare time to try out Primo Cache.

 

[kurosaki]

I just dont get why MS isn't releasing their S2D-tech from Server 2016 to win 10. Advanced caching for multiple disks, everything happening automagically.
I have four HDD's of varying size mirrored in Win10's storage spaces. It would be awesome just to throw a couple of SSD's as cache on top of this, but then I must buy windows server it seems. It's just stupid. Any representatives from MS on this forum?

 

[x31o]

I did some testing with storage spaces and found inconsistent results. I set up 500GB Samsung 960 as L2. Benchmarks were radical! However, when copying data to the storage space, it was fast for about 30 GB but then slowed to a crawl after that. Looking at the cache stats I could see the writes going straight to disk. Also, during testing with deferred write, I encountered corruption of the entire ReFS volume. I would advise caution based on what I have seen.

 

[kurosaki]

I did some testing with storage spaces and found inconsistent results. I set up 500GB Samsung 960 as L2. Benchmarks were radical! However, when copying data to the storage space, it was fast for about 30 GB but then slowed to a crawl after that. Looking at the cache stats I could see the writes going straight to disk. Also, during testing with deferred write, I encountered corruption of the entire ReFS volume. I would advise caution based on what I have seen.

Which server version? 2016? Should be stable. They recommend 2 SSD's for redundancy though.

 

[x31o]

tested on 2016 & 2019 same results. To be clear... I believe primocache caused the issues. I have not seen issues with storage spaces when no primocache was involved (I am sure there are some, but I have not experienced them myself).

 

[kurosaki]

Ahh! You used both! Stage spaces for server has built in cache functions. I bet that is what caused the troubles. A shame win 10 lacks automatic SSD caching. Would have been prepared to pay a bit extra to get that with refs, which they just took away from win 10. Wonder what will be deprecated from win 10 next, direct X 12?

 

[beradon]

Just wanted to weigh in on this one. I recently converted a RAID 5 onboard RAID array to a microsoft storage spaces parity array (yes yes, I know the drawbacks of both) due to the move from an Intel i7-7700k to a Ryzen 3950X and no option for things like RAID 5 in RaidXpert2 (terrible terrible RAID management software btw) or Optane since that is an Intel technology.

I installed Primocache due to the excessively slow write performance to my Parity storage space array, and am using it with a 256GB SATA SSD, and, possibly based on my settings, I noticed immediate improvement. I can tell you without a doubt I'm getting better performance on my storage spaces parity array than I ever was in Intel RST RAID 5. My license was due to expire in about 8 days, so I just went and purchased it. if anyone wants some settings information, I can supply them. I'd also be open to any suggestions on mine.

 

[aigomorla]

.... i honestly think its a placebo.
Its a bandaid at best trying to replicate what Optane is.
Optane is a far better route to go, especially if your not using a NVMe at all.
You can also get 16GB optane sticks for cheap used on ebay now as well.

If your using an NVMe, then well, back to my original statement, its a placebo.

 

[beradon]

I'd have to disagree, I can enable and disable it and show you the difference in copy speeds. It's quite dramatic.

 

[aigomorla]

I'd have to disagree, I can enable and disable it and show you the difference in copy speeds. It's quite dramatic.

again on what type of system are we talking about?
Primocache uses RAM to page stuff like a ram drive.
But it costs Ram which is expensive, if your buying extra ram just so you can run primocache your not building your PC properly.

Newer systems have something called a NVMe.
Optane Accelerators run on that NVMe.
Both Intel and AMD support NVMe acceleration of some sort which is FAR better then Primocache even if your limited to the 16GB optane module, that you'd be building that PC wrong if you didn't build it with a NVMe if it can support it.

If your budget is large enough to support a large cap NVMe like a 2TB Intel 600p, for example, then primocache will not help you in anything noticable if your running a NVMe unless you are doing synthetic benchmarks.

Primocache is just a paid version of what samsung magician rapid mode was only rapid mode works only on a samsung SSD.
And consensus was even that was pretty much pointless outside synthetic benchmarks, which is why no one really uses it these days, especially since now there is again NVMe's.

@VirtualLarry i remember larry has played with primocache extensively, as i remember him talking about it. I dont recall what his exact thoughts were on it, but maybe he can contribute his personal opinion in regards to it.

 

[0ldman79]

Not every system can run Optane. Intel made sure of that.

Further, not everyone can afford a 2TB SSD.

Even an old Intel 80GB SSD with Primocache and a 4GB buffer takes a highly modded Fallout 4 startup time from upwards of five minutes to a little under one minute. That's not placebo.

Having the OS interface write files at 5+ GB/s and handle the rest in the background is not placebo. Having the IO increase to the capacity of RAM rather than a HDD or SSD is not placebo.

It is not a perfect solution, that would be a PCIe 4.0 NVME, but if you've got some spare parts and a little extra RAM you can *actually* get NVME speeds on files you're working on.

I'll take my DVR videos, run them through Staxrip and have the 2GB files ripped at the speed of my RAM ready for encoding in spite of the fact that they're on a mechanical hard drive.

The difference of 2 seconds vs 1 minute is not placebo.

Samsung RAPID has no user configurable options and can't cache a mechanical drive. Primocache has a ton of options, can be adjusted on the fly. When gaming I set it to 2-4GB, when doing video work I'll set it as high as 8GB and tear through the video files.

Further, I recommend reading up on the difference between AMD's accelerator and Primocache. Primocache is 100% non-destructive. You can pull the SSD without issue. AMD's acceleration, if the SSD is gone your data is gone as the files are actually moved from the drive to the SSD. As much as I like AMD they chose the wrong company to partner with for their caching option.

 

[aigomorla]

@BonzaiDuck

calling bonzai to take over... im trying to debate against a guy who is linking Linus in which i give up, because well you know my thoughts on him.

>.<

 

[Muadib]

@BonzaiDuck

calling bonzai to take over... im trying to debate against a guy who is linking Linus in which i give up, because well you know my thoughts on him.

>.<

I missed your thought on Linus. Do you have a link?

 

[0ldman79]

I really don't care about your thoughts on Linus.

The site editors don't seem to mind him, regardless of all of that the video is full of good info with testing.

You're just discrediting yourself with bias against the messenger.

 

[VirtualLarry]

For an SSD cache drive, I don't think I'd run anything newer than an MLC drive, just grab a small, cheap MLC drive.

There's a "Vaseky"-brand M.2 SATA drive, 128GB capacity, 2280 size, for $21.99 @ Newegg, that claims to be MLC "Grain". Might be worth checking out, although it's from a 3rd-party seller (probably Asian).

 

[thor23]

I have an SSD with 32gb of ram so I don't need primocache as much as someone as a Hard drive, still improving the write speed of your ssd to RAMdisk speeds is still worth it, I also run my windows partition with a 6gb r/w ram disk(5.1gb for reads), this means basically 100% of my writes and 95%+ of my reads on my OS partition happen at ramdisk speeds.

 

[0ldman79]

There's a "Vaseky"-brand M.2 SATA drive, 128GB capacity, 2280 size, for $21.99 @ Newegg, that claims to be MLC "Grain". Might be worth checking out, although it's from a 3rd-party seller (probably Asian).

I've adjusted my opinion on that MLC/TLC thing since that post, I've had a WD Blue 1TB 3D NAND for a year now and it gets used pretty heavy and it's still at 99% endurance left. They'll be fine... lol

Good to know about the MLC drive tho. That's not a bad price period. Most TLC 128GB are around $20 and 256GB are around $30.

 

[aigomorla]

id like to see you kill a 3dxpoint drive faster then you could kill a MLC drive. Also hence the price.

Hence i rate 3DXpoint.. aka intel Optane drives > then most conventional SSD's, as 3DXpoint even has fault protection as the nands start dying.

Thats if your data is THAT important, and you want to store it on a single SSD. (which i HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND.)

 

[0ldman79]

Yeah, the design differences between 3dxpoint and MLC, the 3dxpoint should outlast it.

MLC and TLC tend to survive a lot longer than their ratings, which is very nice considering the reliability of the first couple of SSD generations.

That being said I'm using an OCZ 60GB and two Intel 80GB SSD for my Primocache L2 and they're still running just fine.

Intel SSD have been the buffer for going on two years now and still show good health. Mine are old as hell, engineering samples at that so they don't give a lot of detail when reading with the Intel SSD tools, but they still show good health and a metric buttload of writes.

8 TB written to each so far and not one issue.

 

[Charlie22911]

So I’m seriously considering pulling the trigger on the primocache software, and I’m curious to know if anyone here is using it for their steam library?
I have a large library (close to 5TB), and it’s not economical to purchase a SSD large enough to fit that much. And with SSDs relegating HDDs nearly exclusively to slow bulk storage, I’m thinking about pairing a 6TB WD black I have on hand with a 1TB 970pro I also have on hand. I’ve been getting by, swapping games off to my NAS until I’m ready to play, but that’s a hugeee pain.
Thoughts?