Hi,
i did once test the 0.92 version of PrimoCache against VeloSSD and unfortunately, the initial write caching where much slower compared to VeloSSD. In both cases i used a 32k partition and the main difference was the time it took to copy/cache initially to the SSD. In some cases PrimoCache was even slower at the initial first run time, than starting it from disk without a level2 cache. In comparison VeloSSD managed to do the initial caching at near disk speed. I did try write through/back with different settings and the scenario is a 500GB disk that has several games installed and a 128gb level2 ssd.
So does the 0.98 version has any improvements regarding the initial copy/caching from the physical disk to the ssd? After the initial caching PrimoCache and VeloSSD seemed to behave at similar speed, while VeloSSD was still slightly (5%-10%) faster to start the games.
I actually would rather buy PrimoCache, since i like the statistics and settings better, but something seems to slow down the initial copy/cache of first accessed data from disk->ssd. I also tried with 3 different block sized, 4/16/64k clusters on a NTFS system.
So any advice i can try and is it worth retesting the 0.98 version?
thx Andy
PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
How about the case where cache block size equals to cluster size? Thanks.
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
In the first test i actually always did this, i just changed to have more test cases, since it was odd that PrimoCache behaved this way.
So i did test 4/16/32/64k NTFS cluster size, with 4/16/32/64k cache blocks, but the result was still the same. In particular, the game "Path of Exile" seems to to-do a lot if small reads at startup, which PrimoCache seemed to had a hard time copying to the ssd cache, in the PoE case the first startup time of the game increased by 60% compared to default HDD startup times, while VeloSSD did startup at hdd disk speed at the first startup. Maybe its a strange combination of small reads/writes from HDD->SSD and windows default cache in combination with the setup SSD cache?
In all cases i did reboot the system, so the windows ram cache was cleared, i also deleted the SSD cache partitions in all cases, to ensure a fresh first time result.
In both cases i expected the first startup to be near the same speed as without a cache (HDD speed) and consecutive starts at SSD speed. PoE is a fringe case, since PrimoCache even performed (15-30%) worse compared to VeloSSD even after first caching finished. Other games did not show a significant speed difference between the 2 and both performed near SSD speed after initial caching.
I might test 0.98 again.
bye Andy
So i did test 4/16/32/64k NTFS cluster size, with 4/16/32/64k cache blocks, but the result was still the same. In particular, the game "Path of Exile" seems to to-do a lot if small reads at startup, which PrimoCache seemed to had a hard time copying to the ssd cache, in the PoE case the first startup time of the game increased by 60% compared to default HDD startup times, while VeloSSD did startup at hdd disk speed at the first startup. Maybe its a strange combination of small reads/writes from HDD->SSD and windows default cache in combination with the setup SSD cache?
In all cases i did reboot the system, so the windows ram cache was cleared, i also deleted the SSD cache partitions in all cases, to ensure a fresh first time result.
In both cases i expected the first startup to be near the same speed as without a cache (HDD speed) and consecutive starts at SSD speed. PoE is a fringe case, since PrimoCache even performed (15-30%) worse compared to VeloSSD even after first caching finished. Other games did not show a significant speed difference between the 2 and both performed near SSD speed after initial caching.
I might test 0.98 again.
bye Andy
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
I may misunderstand, but if you haven't tested v0.9.8, you may try it again. In this version, we did some improvements on level1 and level2 cache algorithm.
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
For what it's worth, I just tested VeloCache (evaluation copy). Velocache is a complete disaster. GUI sucks, so primitive. No stats whatsoever.
Velo can only cache to SSD. So if your boot drive is an SSD, you're out of luck. You can do it but it simply duplicates your SSD to another SSD.
Caching my 2 TB spinner made the whole machine dead slow. 100% CPU for prolonged periods. 100% write on both the spinner and the cache volume (SSD).
My spinner is now slower than a floppy disk. Now trying to uninstall. Velo is now synchronizing the disks and it has been doing so for the past hour. At least on W8-x64, Velo is a primitive and useless waste of time and money.
PrimoCache on the other hand, is doing everything I expect from a cache. Velocache is a disaster. Supercache is a toy. Primocache is an instrument.
Keep up the good work Romex!
Velo can only cache to SSD. So if your boot drive is an SSD, you're out of luck. You can do it but it simply duplicates your SSD to another SSD.
Caching my 2 TB spinner made the whole machine dead slow. 100% CPU for prolonged periods. 100% write on both the spinner and the cache volume (SSD).
My spinner is now slower than a floppy disk. Now trying to uninstall. Velo is now synchronizing the disks and it has been doing so for the past hour. At least on W8-x64, Velo is a primitive and useless waste of time and money.
PrimoCache on the other hand, is doing everything I expect from a cache. Velocache is a disaster. Supercache is a toy. Primocache is an instrument.
Keep up the good work Romex!
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
Is this some form of trolling? "My spinner is now slower than a floppy disk" thats your "review" seriously?Bjameson wrote:For what it's worth, I just tested VeloCache (evaluation copy). Velocache is a complete disaster. GUI sucks, so primitive. No stats whatsoever.
Velo can only cache to SSD. So if your boot drive is an SSD, you're out of luck. You can do it but it simply duplicates your SSD to another SSD.
Caching my 2 TB spinner made the whole machine dead slow. 100% CPU for prolonged periods. 100% write on both the spinner and the cache volume (SSD).
My spinner is now slower than a floppy disk. Now trying to uninstall. Velo is now synchronizing the disks and it has been doing so for the past hour. At least on W8-x64, Velo is a primitive and useless waste of time and money.
PrimoCache on the other hand, is doing everything I expect from a cache. Velocache is a disaster. Supercache is a toy. Primocache is an instrument.
Keep up the good work Romex!
If this actually happens, u might want to help by posting your scenario + problems in the VeloSSD forum/support. We use both PrimoCache and VeloSSD on 4 different machines, PrimoCache on some older 32bit machines, to get the extra invisible memory and VeloSSD on x64 Win7 machines.
Except for the problem i described, we had no problems with both products whatsoever.
So giving more details may help others, so what process did produce 100% cpu usage, what tools u used to measure performance before and after, what filsesystem u used at what cluster size? What brand/type/bios is your SSD and hdd u setup level2 caches for?
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
No trolling intended, far from it. But given the proud promises on the VeloCache website, I had expected it to at least work in a decent manner.
I may still post my findings on the Velocache forum but for now, I see no reason to take that trouble. Primocache and Supercache work right out-of-the-box and Velo is not. So Velocache is either a defective or an unfinished product.
If they fix their problems and post a working evaluation version on their website, I'll be the first to post any positive results. If Primocache fails, I'll also be the first to post. Don't think I have anything against Velocache.
I may still post my findings on the Velocache forum but for now, I see no reason to take that trouble. Primocache and Supercache work right out-of-the-box and Velo is not. So Velocache is either a defective or an unfinished product.
If they fix their problems and post a working evaluation version on their website, I'll be the first to post any positive results. If Primocache fails, I'll also be the first to post. Don't think I have anything against Velocache.
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
Well over a year ago I posted a rather negative review about VeloSSD. Now, EliteBytes has a new version which works very well indeed. The reason why I tried VeloSSD once again is that PrimoCache's L2 categorically refuses to work on my new system. AMD A10-5800K, GigaByte F2A88XM-D3H, 32 GB RAM, ST4000DX001 4TB harddisk (which itself has a 8 GB SSD cache) and a bunch of Samsung and OCZ SSD's.
The Seagate's SSD cache works fine but I needed more than 8 GB. So I was hoping that PrimoCache's L2 would work. It wouldn't. I tried every trick in the book like resetting performance counters, different Primo configurations, L2 on different disks etc. L2 builds and reads from L2 succeed. But on every reboot L2 is cleared.
VeloSSD (latest 2015 version) works perfectly. It caches without any issue at all and speeds up my system to almost SSD speed. So I bought a license for only $9.99. So far, no regrets. VeloSSD (now) is an excellent product. I tried to break things by defragging the host volume and rebooting or cutting power. Velo simply recovers without causing corruption. So I'm very positive about VeloSSD now.
Having said that, I still wonder why Primo's L2 won't work on my AMD. It did in the past, on an Intel system. Not having the source code, I have no idea why Primo wipes out L2 on every reboot. Anyone else having problems on AMD systems?
The Seagate's SSD cache works fine but I needed more than 8 GB. So I was hoping that PrimoCache's L2 would work. It wouldn't. I tried every trick in the book like resetting performance counters, different Primo configurations, L2 on different disks etc. L2 builds and reads from L2 succeed. But on every reboot L2 is cleared.
VeloSSD (latest 2015 version) works perfectly. It caches without any issue at all and speeds up my system to almost SSD speed. So I bought a license for only $9.99. So far, no regrets. VeloSSD (now) is an excellent product. I tried to break things by defragging the host volume and rebooting or cutting power. Velo simply recovers without causing corruption. So I'm very positive about VeloSSD now.
Having said that, I still wonder why Primo's L2 won't work on my AMD. It did in the past, on an Intel system. Not having the source code, I have no idea why Primo wipes out L2 on every reboot. Anyone else having problems on AMD systems?
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
Funny world, i actually ended up buying PrimoCache 1.01 after i had 2 bad filesystem problems on the drive that VeloSSD was caching. Basically VeloSSD seem to have crashed my system (bluescreen) and after this crash windows tried to recover the HDD filesystem, which took hours. Than after it was finished doing all sort of cryptic recovering most of my games crashed or would not load anymore, since some files got corrupted. This happened 2 times in similar fashion with the early 2014 releases, after that i switched to Primo and had no such problems.Bjameson wrote:VeloSSD (now) is an excellent product. I tried to break things by defragging the host volume and rebooting or cutting power. Velo simply recovers without causing corruption. So I'm very positive about VeloSSD now.
So far the only reason i might try VeloSSD again, is that they don't need "overhead" memory for there caching and as seen in my tests always had near ideal speeds. On the other hand Primo worked without any problems at all so far and speeds are nearly identically to raw ssd speed after the initial caching.
Re: PrimoCache vs VeloSSD (SSD caching)
I tried VeloSSD a couple of weeks back it worked well for 1 day including restarts and reboots, the next day i switched the PC on my Primary HDD was corrupt 5 hours later I had recovered the drive but NTFS permissions were screwed so much that no settings were being saved also all my app settings and pinned apps had been lost. While I had constant blue screens (2 or more times a week) and shutdown failures (system would not finish shutting down requiring a reset and loss of the current cache) with PrimoCache at least I never suffered from HDD corruption.