I'm curious what you'd recommend for this usecase. I have a VFX workstation that reads/writes large and small files constantly (eg: 1000 images from an animation sequence, or multiple uncompressed footage files). Read speed is usually more important than writing (as rendering is usually the bottleneck when it comes to writing).
- NVMe 1TB: Windows
- NVMe 2TB: Storage
- HDD 4TB: Storage
- HDD 4TB: Storage
- RAM 128gb
I'm researching solutions that would let me combine the 3 storage drives into 1, take advantage of the SSD speed, and still allow for data mirroring across drives (similar to raid1).
Is this possible by using DrivePool with Primo Cache? Or should I be looking at other solutions?
Assuming this is a good avenue to pursue, what settings would be optimal?
I'm not sure about a few things here:
- DrivePool the 2 HHD storage drives?
- DrivePool turn on Pool file duplication x2
- PrimoCache task the 3 storage drives together? (not the new drivepool)
- Set the entire 2TB SSD as PrimoCache L2 storage? L2 Size set to MAX?
- If I dont want PrimoCache using RAM as cache, do I set L1 to 0mb? Or is it necessary to have it use some?
- Blocksize? A larger blocksize would seem to make sense given the smallest average files I deal with are a 2-10mb, aside from occasional text file. However, primo says block should match the cluster size or smaller? (usually 4kb right?) How do I check the cluster size of the L2 storage when it doesn't get assigned a drive letter? Dropping the block size makes the overhead skyrocket so...128kb looks like the happy place?
- Do i need to partition the L2 SSD 2TB Storage to only use 90% of the drive in order to maintain drive health? Something related to TRIM support...
- Enable Defer-write, 60sec Latency, Intelligent write mode, free cache on written?
- Drive Specs - should I uncheck L1 cache if I dont want primo to use RAM? or what's advised here?
- Other settings I've forgotten?