Fancycache issue Topic is solved

[SnowReborn]

Hi i been using fancycache for few weeks now (trail version) i realize that it's great program, however i realized it actually wasn't fully functioning under windows 7 / windows 8 where it already including a memory cache function, if you open task manager (ctrl alt delete), on performance tab you will see windows 7 is actually caching your opened (or already closed) programs into the memory, however fancycache will now skip those programs instead caching them, the only time i found fancycache is actually functioning is that when i copy paste files, or doing benchmarks, or recording videos, other wise, it would not work! i felt very dispionted by that because i bought a 32gb ram but all used up by windows 7's cache manager, i prefer to use fancycache as my caching manager but seems there's no way to disable windows 7 one, i been looking for solution for while now, i wonders if other have same problem as i do (not actually caching on games or applications , most of them at least) or if fancycache can add up some feature to disable windows 7 Integrated caching manager that would be great.

[Manny]

1) there is a way to disable file level cache
2) FancyCache works fine as it should on Windows 7 and Windows 8
3) this tool is for people who understands what is caching and how different caches works, for other users it can be useless and even harmful, just for note FancyCache uses Block Level Cache, Microsoft was using in in DOS and Windows 3.11, now Microsoft uses File Level Cache, and not without a reason
4) If you want you can dedicate 1-4 Gb of ram to the cache, with smallest block size, and fancy cache will do the best for you. In addition to windows file level cache.

[dustyny]

Snowborn:

I see where you are getting confused. The two caching systems you are talking about are completely different. What you see in the performance tab is the Windows Paging system cache http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging, this is used in the memory management system and there is absolutely no way to disable it, as it is vital to Windows. I'll skip the explanation (sorry) but the paging system is a very complicated topic and most people (even experienced Sys admins) don't really understand what it is and how it works; nor do they need to.

The problem that I think you're running in to is trying to compare OS caching to the disk caching system of Fancycache.
Page file caching = pages of memory from ram. Including the kernel, OS, H/W drivers, application and open files
Fancycache caching = disk blocks read from storage devices. Fancycache intercepts the read/write request to these blocks and utilizes RAM and SSDs to boost r/w performance.

I hate to speculate but I get the impression that confusion on how Fancycache works has given you a bad impression. Just to be sure here are the basics, maybe you'll pick up on something you missed.

• Caching can only works on a file that has been read off the hard drive. Fancy cache does not pre-load data in to the cache. This initial read is at disk speed which loads the disk blocks in to the cache and subsequent calls to read those disk blocks will be much faster as they are read from the level 1 and/or level 2 cache.
  
  Rebooting destroys your cache. Every time you reboot you have to rebuild your caches again.
  
  Always put the the level 2 cache on a SSD, flash/thumbdrives, memory cards & hard drives are not fast enough and you will (probably) create a bottleneck and experience a performance hit when you use it.
  
  Level 2 cache is only used when you exceed Level 1 cache, otherwise it will be idle.
  
  If you are reading/writing a lot of tiny files or small bits of data off disk (say 4K) then you will always be slow. You'll see this in Atto disk benchmark, small files data chunks are read off of disks (even SSDs & Ramdisks) at a very low speed due to overhead costs.
  
  Finding the best configuration settings takes time to test and setting the wrong settings can reduce performance and put your data at risk for corruption. Here is an example of some of my test results. viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1278
  
  Each application reads data differently and slow loading times might be due to how the application reads and loads data. Keep in mind it can be very costly (in time) to process the data that is read off disk. Slow disk reads could just be the program taking a while to process the data it reads before loading new data. For instance my 8xSSD raid set (without Fancycache) is able to read data at 2.5 gigabytes per sec, yet it still takes 15-20 mins to install a 2GB app. In this instance a lot of stuff happens in the background, file decompression, copys, registry updates, security permissions, etc. So the disk is not always the bottleneck, sometimes it's just the program processing data.

Since this is a beta there are a number of things that will change and the developers have clearly been listening to forum feedback. So future versions will most likely work a little differently and some of these will no longer be relevant.

[Manny]

That memory is not only for Paging. That would be correct for WinXP, but Win7 loads to file system cache ANY file, and even if it was not running or used since last reboot.
http://www.osnews.com/story/21471/Super ... orks_Myths
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vi ... chnologies

There is a way to disable all build in filesystem caches, but it will slow down system so much, that you will need an hour or two to lunch Regedit and enable it back. So i'm not going to post guide here.

Main difference between File and Block level cache is that File level cache operates only with full file, so if you have huge containers with resources, or virtual PC disk image, file level cache will ignore them, but Block level cache can cache separate pieces of files so it will work in case of huge files.
The other noticable difference that File-Level-Cache don't cache folders, MFT, and other service structures of hard drive. But Block-Level does. It give some boost, but may cause data corruption.

In general Block level cache is dump, effective, has less overheads, but VERY DANGEROUS. That is why it is not used since MS DOS 6.22. Most of users even in 91 year was not understanding why they are loosing their data, and that they need to flush their data manually before restart and after major changes on hdd, so Microsoft just disabled Write-Trough cache, and then moved to less fast but more controllable File-Level cache, and excluded from caching everything that may cause troubles.

So again - use it in default way, or make sure you understand well what is going on, or you may loose all your data.
For example some scenarios:
1) boot
2) copy files from flash drive to disk with deffer write enabled
3) send pc to sleep or hibernation
4) wake up
5) shut down
6) boot and LOOSE some of copied files with 1-5% chance (twice per year on my laptop)

One more scenario:
1) start doing some intensive hdd operations on system partition (drive C:) with enabled deffer write
2) press reboot (simulate BSOD or power loss)
3) your system becomes NON recoverable trash (System restore would not be able to fix it) with 20% chance

[dustyny]

Manny you seem like a nice guy and obviously very interested in this sort of stuff but there is a lot of bad info here.

[Manny]

yeah you are right, thanks for the books. Yeah those tools are great. There is always place for studding. But in general so far I fill my raw interest in this area, so if you see mistakes please tell me I will try to find right answers then.

[dustyny]

To be honest most of this stuff is just academic, it's really good to know but it doesn't have much practical use. Once you understand how the Windows subsystems work, you pretty much understand they shouldn't be messed with unless you have a very specific use case. For general purpose computing (as in installing and running more then one app) it's a terrible idea because each program is written differently and they all expect windows to be set to default settings. If you had just one application such as a server app (SQL, Exchange, etc) you might do this but generally it's under the guidance of the software developer because they've designed the program to operate a certain way.

I think the issue is that this is technology that has normally only been available at the enterprise level. Companies like Romex are consumerising it but understanding how it works requires a lot of knowledge that someone without formal training (college, certification, CBTs, etc) isn't going to have. But that's always the problem with tech.

I'd recommend working on foundation if you are really interested in learning. If you try to get in to complex topics missing basic information you'll probably get things a bit tangled in your mind.
Here is an Opencourseware course on System engineering.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-e ... fall-2006/

[Manny]

thanks for the link but right now I don't interested in academic learning especially because I still don't see what was my mistake, and what I need to fix. So far you did not say any new information for me. So if you disagree with something that I wrote them please argue, if not I don't search for any kind of help in this topic

[SnowReborn]

Wow, i'm impressed by your explanations, i surely misunderstood how fancycache works, since i was just expect it to make my games and applications faster, i think windows paging cache did the job, now i understood that fancycache is for some other purpose like file copying or disk reading instead application and games. Thank you very much for taking time explain to me, also im wondering if you have skype or any other chat program? Cuz i like pc alot and sometimes have problems really hard to solve, it would be great if i can just pm you tho skype or something else instead forum

[Violator]

Fancycache does help on games up to some degree too, since Windows caching algorithm is far from optimal for gaming.
There are better options for gaming than FancyCache thou, if you have enough ram for it, like manually caching entire textures files and creating links to them.
But for really huge files FancyCache is still the better option as long as the game engines own code fails to do a good job, which sadly is true for many new games.

@Manny
Windows 7/8 does not cache ANY file, you can check for yourself: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/win_prefetch_view.html

Block level caching isn't dangerous for read operations, it is if you use it for writes and especially with lazy write, you use controllers with ram and a battery backup for write caching, which still is used widely on servers since the performance benefit can't be ignored, it's also cheaper than upgrading an entire cluster with SSD's.

I wouldn't recommend the use of write caching on a regular PC without setting it completely up for the job and add some battery backup myself either thou, to much that can go wrong there as you already mentioned.
Plus that small servers which got the hardware and their own software for such tasks often are cheaper than a desktop PC.