I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

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truejaz
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I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

Post by truejaz »

I recently bought an SSD EVO 970 500GB to connect as l2 cache to the HDD that has all the games installed on.
I followed the guides but I'm not sure I set it correctly because it didn't seem to work
I would love if anyone could look at the settings and tell me what needs to change
Thank you
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Jaga
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Re: I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

Post by Jaga »

128KB Block Size on a drive with a 4KB cluster size is probably going to degrade your performance, not improve it. You should re-create that cache task with a 4KB or 8KB Block Size (16KB at absolute most) to get better performance. And, remember it will take some time loading content from drive H: before it is regularly called for from Primocache and your L2.
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Support
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Re: I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

Post by Support »

By default, you may just use SSD as read cache to speed up HDD reading. Enable writing cache may wear the SSD too much. So in the Advanced Level-2 Cache Options dialog, you may check the option "Individual Read/Write Cache Space" and move the slider to 100% read.

However, if you do want to also use SSD as write cache to speed up HDD writing, then just ignore my above words, but you need to check the option "Enable Defer-Write". Please note that with Defer-Write enabled a power outage or system failure might result in data loss or corruption because in such scenarios the cache has no chance to write data back to the disk. Based on the consideration above, it is recommended that you may only enable Defer-Write on volumes where temporary, unimportant or reproducible data is to be stored.

I think other settings are good, and after you read files or play games on the HDD, PrimoCache will cache the data into SSD cache. You may check the statistics "L2Storage Write" which indicates how much data has been cached to the SSD cache in current Windows session.
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Re: I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

Post by Support »

Jaga wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 7:36 am 128KB Block Size on a drive with a 4KB cluster size is probably going to degrade your performance, not improve it.
Because the target drive is very huge (~5T), using 4KB cluster size will cause lots of memory overhead. I think 64KB or 128KB is appropriate in this case.
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Jaga
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Re: I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

Post by Jaga »

support wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 7:48 amBecause the target drive is very huge (~5T), using 4KB cluster size will cause lots of memory overhead. I think 64KB or 128KB is appropriate in this case.
I'd never use it, but to each their own. It causes a lot of extra activity even for a tiny amount of data. But he won't know until he tries either/both. :)

The ideal solution would be a re-format of the drive to 32KB or 64KB clusters, and then matching Primocache's block size to that for a 1:1 pairing. But that might be more work than he bargained for.
truejaz
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Re: I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

Post by truejaz »

Thank you all for the help and knowledge you have shared with me
I changed the settings according to what you recommended and seems to be starting some activity so I'm hopeful that it really works now but I still need to check to be sure
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cichy45
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Re: I'm not sure l2 cache Works properly

Post by cichy45 »

Even if you will set 512KB cluster for 4KB drive, then M.2 SSD is fast enough to handle refreshing of 512KB blocks. That is not an issue in my opinion, especially with 500GB cache disk. It will be mostly static content, write once, read many.
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