Romex Software Forum

Hi all,

My current PC has:

i7-8700k
Z370 motherboard
4x8GB of DDR4-3200

1x Samsung PM961 NVME 256GB as the Windows/Apps drive
1x Samsung PM961 NVME 512GB as the Steam/Blizzard Games Drive
1x Samsung Evo 850 SATA 500GB SSD as the Ubisoft/all other games Drive
1x 256GB external USB 3.0 SSD based drive for "My Documents"
1x 4TB Seagate 5400 RPM HDD for recordings/music etc.

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I haven't run into space issues yet, but I am annoyed that I can't have most of my games installed as the combined weight would be over 1TB.

My thoughts are to

#1 buy a 4TB WD Black HDD for my games drive.

#2 buy Primocache

#3 leave the Windows drive alone

#4 setup an L1 cache with 8GB of system ram, maybe even 16 since I didn't run into memory issues back when I only had 2x8GB with the same usage patterns (web browsing, gaming, OBS Streaming)).

#5 setup an L2 cache with the entire Samsung PM961 NVME 512GB drive, to speed up the new 4TB that houses all of my games.

#6 I am waffling over converting the 850 EVO to becoming my new downloads/My Documents drive, or pulling it and giving it to my wife and continue on with the external option, since it might be convenient to take it with me from time to time.

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Is this a sensible plan?

Thanks!

What would the 8gb L1 cache be caching? It's not that large of a L1 - any of the volumes you have (eve the smallest Windows/Apps drive) are much larger. 8gb might be enough to cover the data on that drive, if it wasn't more than say, 64gb filled. It's certainly not enough to cover any of the other volumes. L1 caches (to be effective) have to be rather large (like a SSD is for a L2).

Example: I use a 20gb L1 cache (sometimes I increase it's size) to cover 100gb of C: data. That's a 1:5 ratio of cache to data. at 8gb:64gb, you're at 1:8, and the smaller that ratio gets, the less cache hits you get. It would still be effective, just less so the more it was filled or the larger a volume you tried to cache with it. To do L1 really effectively, you have to max out RAM on your board and dedicate a ton of it to the L1. With your machine at 32gb of RAM, you should be devoting no less than 16gb of that to the L1. My board has 64gb on it, 20 which I give to the L1, and 20 which I give to a Primo RAMdrive.

If you're concerned about install size on games, setup a RAID 0 (mirror) with 2 new drives (2TB or larger ones), and then use Steam Libraries to move the game installs that you aren't using onto that volume. Or use Windows Junction Points to link local empty directories to real ones on the archive volume. The games would effectively be archived, but still usable there, or re-movable back to your other drives. I personally use a NAS (network attached storage) device with 4 drives in RAID 5, but I needed more space. I also offload some of my installed games to a local RAID 0 Storage Spaces volume when I don't want them on C:

You're throwing a lot of money at NVME drives, which really don't need caching unless you're obsessive about speed. And if you were, you'd also throw a ton of money at RAM and Primocache for the L1. No NVME drive I know of can keep up with near-RAMdrive speeds, which is what you get with a large enough L1 cache.

Consider maxing out your memory, then get Primocache, then go to town with a really large (or several large) L1 caches, backed by a good sized L2 SSD cache. Your system will thank you.