New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

FAQ, getting help, user experience about PrimoCache
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Compusmurf
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New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

Post by Compusmurf »

i7 11th gen.

C 980 Pro Gen 4 2TB NVME
D 970 Epo Plus Gen 3 2TB NVME

64GB DDR4 3200 JEDEC RAM (Not XMR)

I purchased primocache.

It's setup with 32GB R/W shared, Deferred write 10s, prefetch, enabled on boot for both C/D drives. L1 only. I set the R/W balance to 90% READ, 10% write. (3GB write )

Both drives are 4k aligned, primocache set to 4k.

Is there anything I'm missing, anything you could see better, more efficient?
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Jaga
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Re: New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

Post by Jaga »

How much data are you caching between your C and D drives? Even if you only have 1TB populated between the two, your data coverage rate is around 3.1% (32/1024), which means depending on how much data you access regularly your hitrate may suffer and the cache performance along with it.

Typically just allowing Windows to run off a fast NVMe is enough, so if your apps/games/etc are all installed to D, I'd switch the cache to D only.

I'd also remove the Windows Pagefile completely, given your memory size. Otherwise it may start to occupy cache space.

Personally (this isn't everyone's opinion) I'd switch from separate read/write space to 100% shared space. But again, it depends on what apps you are using and the data they access. I find shared space to be completely adequate for daily use and gaming, but then I'm only caching ~100 GB on a fast NVMe with a ~40GB L1 cache, so my data coverage is much higher, and you *may* see some benefit from separating them. All depends on app behavior and how much stuff you access daily.

One trick you can use to improve hitrate is shrinking a volume on one of your drives, creating a new volume in the unused space, and dropping your most used apps/games on the new volume. Then cache just that volume, and watch hitrates enjoy healthy margins.
Compusmurf
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Re: New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

Post by Compusmurf »

I have mixed apps and data on both C/D. I WAS thinking making a partition ONLY for the pagefile to get it off C/D so it wouldn't cache.
InquiringMind
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Re: New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

Post by InquiringMind »

With that size of L1 cache, I'd suggest a larger block size (32-64KB) - this will reduce index size (and associated memory overhead). The index has to be checked with every disk block read or written, so a large index can have a negative effect on performance.

PrimoCache does benefit from increased memory speed so (careful!) overclocking may pay dividends, but your system should be fast enough for normal purposes. What exactly are you trying to speed up?

As for the pagefile, assuming you have plenty of memory to spare, using Primo Ramdisk to create a (small) volume for the pagefile only and a larger, hybrid volume (part memory, part disk) for temporary files may be an option to consider (having temp files on a non-imaged ramdisk can also offer a privacy benefit).
Compusmurf
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Re: New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

Post by Compusmurf »

It's a laptop. Doing much overclocking of anything *cpu, ram, or video, is only going to end up causing thermal issues and stability issues. That's the last thing I need.

What am I going to speed up, well, my most used apps and things I use every day should be cached to primocache and be able to start "nearly instant" which is still faster than NVME drive.

Caching writes should "slow down" wear and tear on the drives.

For 95% of the time, that 64GB is idle, but it's there for when I need to open multiple virtual servers for my lab and testing. I'm with our IT engineering department and I build and tear down VM's all day long testing things. 64 becomes VERY handy when you need to fire up 5 or more for a bigger test.

So my thought was, why not primocache to use that ram when my other projects don't? :)

About the block size, I was under the impression it should match your actual block size of the drives.
InquiringMind
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Re: New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

Post by InquiringMind »

Compusmurf wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:23 pmAbout the block size, I was under the impression it should match your actual block size of the drives.
It shouldn't be less than the NTFS cluster size used on the drive (it can be, but you'd see no benefit).

Matching the cluster size means that PrimoCache will only read (and write) exactly what the filesystem asks for. However when you have a large cache, a small block size means a large number of blocks (8,388,608 in the case of 4KB blocks over a 32GB cache) which have to be indexed, and that index is constantly being checked and updated. Having a larger blocksize will reduce the index size (and the memory/CPU overhead in maintaining it) and give you a "read ahead" effect with read-caching (assuming your disk is reasonably well defragmented). If your data access consists of large, sequential reads, this should offer better performance (a quick test with CrystalDiskMark and looking at the sequential read results should confirm this).
Compusmurf
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Re: New here. Here's setup, what more do you suggest.

Post by Compusmurf »

Ok, based on the suggestions.

L1 cache only, 32Gb (50% of total system)
I changed the read cache to 80%, Write to 20%. 10s delay.
I changed block size to 32kb.
My system swap/page file is on it's OWN, private, uncompressed volume on the 2nd NVME drive (not with OS) (That drive is NOT cached by primocache) minus of course, the very small pagefile for bluescreen dumps.

My only spinning rust drives are for daily C/D backups. NO apps installed. No need to cache them.
Overclocking ram/cpu/video is a no, esp on a laptop where heat is already a potential issue.


So, any other suggestions/optimizations?
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