PrimoCache testing

[ebfortin]

I just brought an entry level gaming laptop. For a thousand I get a pretty good CPU, standard 8 GB RAM, a good GPU but....... A 1 TB slow as hell HDD. It made the laptop very sluggish. It comes with a M.2 expansion slot so I bought a 128 GB NVME flash drive. My quest for a good cache software began.

First I tested Intel Rapid Storage, which comes pre-installed with the laptop. Strange thing, even if it comes pre-installed, it needs RAID. Which the laptop does not supporgt. So it was a no go.

Then ReadyBoost. No change whatsoever. No go.

VeloSSD. Buggy as hell. Web site comes from 1990, and software too. Never worked.

And finally PrimoCache. Tested some configuration and I can now say that I LOVE IT! My computer is not laggy at all. You just need to load an app once and then it comes from the Cache. It's really the best of both worlds : Large storage with lightning speed of an SSD.

There seems to be a lot of incomprehension on the web regarding Cache software for HDD. When people ask questions, usually the answer is "Just buy a bigger SSD and transfer everything". But in reality, it's a very cost effective way of speeding up your computer. Looking at the stats, I get right now 85% cache it on a 6 GB filled L2 cache. Meaning I always use mostly the same data from the disk.

So after this LONG story, my question to Romex. Are you planning to try having this software bundled with OEM? If I take my laptop as an example. It's a Dell. Add a 32 GB M.2 NVME drive to it with your software. And for about the same price, you get a computer le lot better.

Anyway, I was sceptical but now I'm sold. Very good piece of software.

[Jaga]

Replace that spindle drive when you get the funds to do it. It isn't hard, and even Primo will benefit by the faster disk underneath it.

For $1k I'd expect you'd get much better components, but maybe you have a larger monitor and slower/smaller components. I wouldn't build a gaming machine (even a laptop) with less than 16gig of RAM now either. If you get the chance to upgrade that, do it asap. Primo will definitely like more RAM to run with.

[ebfortin]

À thousand Canadian, which equals roughly to 750$ us. So I think I got a pretty good deal. And my goal is not to throw money to get the best of the best. If that was the case, I wouldn't bother and put in 3000$. My goal was to get the best overall laptop for the money and stay affordable. And PrimoCache helped achieve it.

[Jaga]

Ahh, Canadian. That changes the result then. Still - over time, try to improve those parts - RAM first.

I wouldn't run a system (especially a gaming system) without Primo anymore. It's just too good.

[BonzaiDuck]

When I touted my Primo experiments and configurations over the last couple years at another forum, I got the same responses we had about the Intel proprietary ISRT: "It's not 'real' speed." "It depends on the cache size, and it's only benchmark results." Some folks apparently recoil from software solutions.

But on one old laptop with 8GB and only an SATA II controller, together with three other desktop systems, I've been using it since 2014 and never had any problem with it. There was never any drive corruption when I avoided using deferred writes, and I haven't experienced any problems after deciding to use that feature on one of the systems. It's a Swiss Army knife of caching options.

You're best to try and simplify your configurations. Using a 250GB NVME 960 EVO to cache either SSD or HDD SATA devices is the ultimate, and caching an NVME drive to RAM is beyond astounding.

I don't pay attention to the skeptics anymore.

[ebfortin]

Still testing PrimoCache (3.0 Beta) and it's really really really good. Speed is so much better. I can't imagine going back to work on my laptop without it.

People that say it's only for benchmark do not understand how it works.