Level 2 Caching on a PCIe 4.0 SSD

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botak131
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Level 2 Caching on a PCIe 4.0 SSD

Post by botak131 »

Hello I'm planning to get the PCIe4.0 Firecuda 520 for caching. Would it be worth the effort to cache sata3 SSDs like the 850 evo and are there any performance drawbacks? It'll be my first NVME drive and i'm a complete noob with it, will I be able to partition half for OS and half for Caching without any drawbacks either?
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Jaga
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Re: Level 2 Caching on a PCIe 4.0 SSD

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Just my opinion - I'd never cache another SSD with a L2 simply due to the large possibility of it affecting IOPS on the target SSD. You can try it however and see how it performs for you. Typically Samsung SSDs are effective enough they don't really need L2 caching - L1s are where the true performance gain for them appears.
botak131
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Re: Level 2 Caching on a PCIe 4.0 SSD

Post by botak131 »

Jaga wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 10:40 am Typically Samsung SSDs are effective enough they don't really need L2 caching - L1s are where the true performance gain for them appears.
Ah, are there any advantages with using primocache instead of samsung's Rapid? Also would a Defered-write mitigate issues with IOPS affecting variables? Thanks for the help!
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Jaga
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Re: Level 2 Caching on a PCIe 4.0 SSD

Post by Jaga »

Rapid does something similar, though I don't think it's as good as Primocache (since it's a dedicated paid product).

If you're asking if using deferred write when caching a target SSD with a L2 SSD is helpful, I still wouldn't do it. That's just my personal preference of course, and typically Support would say don't cache a SSD with another SSD (or even NVMe). I haven't tested a Firecuda before, so I don't have any experience to draw on as to whether or not it would be as effective as a L1 cache against the Evo. If you try it and it acts oddly, you can always remove the L2 cache against the Evo. Maybe someone else has firsthand experience.

Personally I use a L1 to cache SSD and NVMe drives, and a SSD to cache spinners. I rarely (pretty much never) do 2-tier caching on a spinner, since SSDs/NVMes are so inexpensive/common now.
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