how to configure?

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fpefpe
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how to configure?

Post by fpefpe »

Hello — I am trying to understand if primocache could help me out.

I just maxed out my win 10 OS with 64gb memory — but it still seems slow to respond from time-to-time I also have also max out all the internal drives slots in the tower (boot drive + 2 data drives) all are HHD drive, so there is no room for a SSD drive.

The pictures at web site seems to imply that a USB (stick) drive could also be use – so am I correct to assume that along with the caching software and the usb drive that combo would improve the system?

Since there is 64gb of memory it seems to me that allocating 16g to the software without the usb drive could be a solution too? If I do add a usb stick drive I guess it should be a usb3 devices, but how fast big does it need to be?

I see that in addition to the caching software there is ram disk tool — could that help? Thanks
janusz521
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Re: how to configure?

Post by janusz521 »

USB keys are rather unreliable. I tried one as an L2 drive but kept getting errors about lost connection. Using an external SSD connected through a USB port will bring better results. After some tuning, the boot time will feel like booting directly from SSD.

My personal advice is to avoid L2 in systems with multi-boot partitions. Removing the drive letter may not be enough, after Windows update the system may reconnect invisible partitions and even defragment them. I had to fully reinstall two such partitions.

Ramdisk will help with using the memory space as a fast but rather unsafe disk. It will work great as a web browser cache or with programs generating lots of temporary data (like programming environments). The other usage is possible as well, you just must be aware that all ramdisk content is lost when the computer crashes but Primo Ramdisk may handle saving and restoring content. Read more in the program documentation.
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Jaga
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Re: how to configure?

Post by Jaga »

Janus is correct - USB "sticks" are unreliable, and can fail at a much higher rate than true external SSD drives. If you want to use a SSD as a L2, make sure it is on a USB 3.x port, and is in a controller which supports high speed connections. I personally would never use either a "stick" or a USB 2.x device as a L2 - it would end up slowing down the machine as a whole, or risking corruption.
fpefpe
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Re: how to configure?

Post by fpefpe »

Thanks for the info --- I see now there are enclosures for NVM memory or an SSD in a enclosure would work as an L2 cache? --- I guess it not recommended just to use L1 cache?
janusz521
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Re: how to configure?

Post by janusz521 »

I used an NVMe drive in an enclosure connected through USB 3.0 and all went fine. Using only L1 cache will of course show some speed up. If you have a large memory you may have some good results with using prefetch. However, using L2 cache will show a bigger performance improvement in reducing boot time and improving overall computer responsiveness.
fpefpe
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Re: how to configure?

Post by fpefpe »

Thanks again for the info --- I max out mem at 64g -- so I am sure I can use 16g without and issue for l1 cache --- how large of the partition was created for the L2 cache?
janusz521
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Re: how to configure?

Post by janusz521 »

When it comes to the L2 cache it depends on how big are the programs/data you want to store. The most obvious factor is games. They may consume up to hundreds of GB. So they need a big L2 cache and it consumes quite a lot of RAM as well to handle it. But in more typical scenarios like Web + Office etc, the sizes proposed by PrimoCache like 32 GB will be just fine.
fpefpe
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Re: how to configure?

Post by fpefpe »

thx for the info --- does the size of L1 and L2 cache have to be the same?
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Jaga
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Re: how to configure?

Post by Jaga »

Nope, they can be totally different sizes. But I -would- recommend matching their block size in the Cache Tasks you setup.
fpefpe
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Re: how to configure?

Post by fpefpe »

thanks again for the info
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