Romex Software Forum

Hey guys,

Just downloaded Primocache and love the software already. I've been playing around with the settings and found what I think is a sweet spot, but still don't fully understand the dynamics of what is possible and was hoping more experienced users would be able to point me at the right settings.

My PC:
cpu: 4.0ghz i7-6700k
memory: 32gb DDR4-3200
harddrive 1 (OS): 400 gb Intel 750 NVMe SSD using a PCIex 3.0 4 lanes
harddrive 2: 500 gb Corsair SSD Sata III
harddrive 3: 3TB - HDD 7200 RPM

Settings I've tried:

(A)
Lvl 1 Cache = 15gb
Native Defer Write, 10 second interval
No lvl 2 Cache
Block-Size = 4kb
Read & Write

(B)
Lvl 1 Cache = 5gb
Average Defer Write
no lvl 2 cache
Block-size = 4kb
Read & Write

(C)
lvl 1 cache = 5gb
Intelligent Defer Write, 10 seconds defer write
no lvl 2 cache
block-size = 4kb
Read & write

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(1): Now I've noticed with every other setting except for "Average Defer Write" the usage of my lvl 1 cache in task monitor will spike from 0 to 100% from 100kb to 1.0 Gbs. Are these spikes bad for my SSD's? With the "Average Defer Write" I am able to get about 200 MB/s throughout most of the operation. Is this better than having spikes for drive usage?

(2): Would I need a lvl 2 cache? I dont think that I would since my operating system run's from an ssd.

(3): Any settings that could help optimize my read/write speeds

Hi, I am far from beeing an expert, but the experience I got so far from L1 caching:
(SSD with 2GB L1 cache, 4K/R&W/Defer 60s/Average/FreeWritten,Flushsleep/Prefetch@Boot)
- it seems to have more use for my systemdrive, since windows produce a lot small writes there
- it reduces massively write access (looking at trimmed blocks and write req vs. write done)

At the moment (uptime arround 5 hours) it shows write req 3.6GB write done 2.8GB.
I imagine there are some files (for examples logs or registry) that changes information in the same block continously. Writing these blocks only once in a minute will save all write access that's requested in between.
Actually I am thinking to set a smaller write only L1 cache for my system drive. But this will also depend on your hardware, software scenario and personal preference.

I wouldn't care about spikes in transfer speed, the spikes can be read or write. SSD only have an limited write counter, how fast you write shouldn't matter.