L2 cache no longer working

[ianmozzy]

Hi
I have changed a few drives on my PC.

Previously it was working fine.

Now when I setup to cache a drive with any L2 cache there is a major problem.
I can set it up and it works.
When I reboot there is a big problem.

When I reboot my machine the L2 cache disappears. In the Manage L2 stoage window there is nothing.
The drives are still in the OS. They are apparently still there.

In the Cache configuration window when I put the mouse over the L2 storage button it says:

L2Storage{Lots of letters & numbers} not present.

The software is useless if it cannot use the L2 storage.

I initially used 3 x 60 GB SSD as a striped dynamic drive.
I tried 2, then a single SSD. Nothing worked.

How can I fix this?
There may be some logs but have no idea where they are.


I am using the latest version of the software. The OS is windows 7 64 bit.

[BonzaiDuck]

What it shows in your last screenie seems similar/identical to what I would see after experimenting with unsuccessful choices of L2 cache configuration. It shows a GUID or key of the L2 storage volume, rather than what you would see when you successfully set up such a volume.

Did you try deleting the old L2 cache and recreating it?

[ianmozzy]

I am able to setup the L2 cache and use it initially.

The problem is that when I reboot it is gone.
The software is presently useless.

I have a registered and paid for software and it is not working. It is an unacceptable situation.

How is this fixed?

Where is the technical support?

[BonzaiDuck]

Do you mean to say that you are using either a striped dynamic array or a RAID configuration as the PRIMOCACHE L2 CACHING SSD?!

Is that what you are saying? I wouldn't even know how to explain precisely why that is a bad idea, but intuitively -- I would almost find that to be ridiculous. I would only ever entertain the idea of caching a SOURCE DRIVE that is also one of the more exotic or multi-disk configurations.

You would only use a single SSD -- preferably in BIOS AHCI mode although a single SSD drive in BIOS RAID Mode should work. If the drive is a single NVME M.2 drive, that also will work -- as the caching volume that supports a source disk -- SSD or HDD.

Also, I would look at the security setting you use in BIOS. I don't allow my drives to be encrypted under Secure Boot. But I can't imagine why PrimoCache wouldn't work properly in that scenario. I just don't do it.

You should be able to cache either a single AHCI SATA SSD or HDD to an NVME caching SSD. You should be able to cache a RAID SATA array of SATA SSDs or HDDs to NVME. You should be able to cache either a RAID array of HDDs to either an AHCI-mode or RAID-mode standalone SATA SSD.

I just hope I'm misunderstanding your initial post, and that you aren't attempting to use a multi-drive array as a caching volume. I would never have attempted such a thing, just for intuitive sense that it complicates the configuration and that it simply won't work. PrimoCache converts an NTFS disk volume on the caching SSD to a special format, reported as "healthy" in Computer Management -> Storage configuration. But it is not an NTFS volume. It does get a GUID string attached to it, which I suspect appears in PrimoCache when it is not working properly, or it is an old L2 volume with a change to new source disk hardware.

First of all, and again "intuitively," I imagine that any software RAID configuration could automatically bork your attempted Primo setup. There are enough situations where the caching volume needs to be available right away to the OS.

Well, you should enlighten me about my inference of your configuration from the wording in your initial post . . . .

[Magistar]

I had a similar issue today. My caching task was renamed to a similar schema and the L2 cache, although reported correctly in Primo L2 manager, was unavailable. Had to basically reset the entire thing. I thought it was caused by the fall creators update, could also have been the reboot...

[ianmozzy]

So 3 or 2 drives in software raid or a single SSD would lose the L2 cache after reboot.

After a but of messing around, found out it is a software issue.

I restored an image from about a year ago and it was working.
What a hassle.
I had to update a lot of things.
Good job I am paranoid when it comes to backups.