Romex Software Forum

First post

First of all. Hello everybody, hope you're Jim and Dandy

Now, I'm really interested in PrimoCache but I have some questions to ask cause I haven't found anything about them in forums or Youtube.

Equipment I have:

PC: X570E MOBO / 5900X / 64GB RAM / 1 NVME / 3 Sata SSDs / 2 HDDs. This is an audio and software development (Fmod, Unity) workstation.

What I wanna achieve:

- I want the HDDs to turn on the least amount of times possible during each day. I have set them to stop at 10min in windows but I dread the fact I often have to wait 10s for them to spin up. Since this is a sound studio I don't like they humming in the background, they're quiet but not dead silent.

As for the disks themselves. They're for storage and mass primary backup but are used very seldomly. Never for streaming audio or video from them, so I'm mostly fetching rather small files once in a while (either manually or when I open a project)

That drive stores all my projects and backups so is very important I don't lose any data. I do have a secondary backup but this one is equally important.

My plan:

- To use a, say 100GB partition form one of my SSDs as cache for the 2 HHDs.

Actual questions:

- If I use only a SSD as cache (as opposed to RAM) for my two HHDs, would a crash lead to loss of data? I'm guessing not as the data is in the SSD so, non volatile.

- I guess by choosing a SSD I can decide when to flush? So it doesn't have to happen continuously which will turn on the HDDs?

- Would doing so indeed help keeping my HDDs off most of the time?

- Any no-no's with PrimoCache? Remember, I don't wanna loose any data.


Thanks a lot in advance. I'm looking forward to purchase PrimoCache for my PCs if this is the case.

Cheers!

Mat.

If I understand correctly, most activities on HDDs are writing, right? If yes, I think PrimoCache may not help for your scenario. Defer-write has to be enabled to reduce writing, thus reducing on time. however it introduces risk of data loss whether you use L1 or L2 only.

Most activities are:

- Save downloaded files.

- Save project files.

- Fetch project files.

Pretty normal HDD tasks, the only thing is I access it only to fetch relatively small files and since I have 3 SSDs my PC most of the time access those for audio library streaming (Kontakt)

Yes I think defer write is the key here.

I was under the impression I could work in the SSD cache and by the end of the day I could flush the cache into the HDD. If a crash happened somewhere in the day the data wouldn't be lost since I'm using a SSD which is non volatile?

Or, what would happen in that scenario?

Of course, as with or without a cache, if there is a crash in the middle of a save the file would be corrupted (or not overwritten cause it didn't finish transferring which is what drives do as far as I know)

My machine is 100% stable, this one is not OC'd cause I value not having down time. And also, you just don't OC a Zen3 chip. (I have some PBO and no Curve Optimizer so it si stable in all situations)

Thank you.

SaccoBelmonte wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 6:16 am I was under the impression I could work in the SSD cache and by the end of the day I could flush the cache into the HDD. If a crash happened somewhere in the day the data wouldn't be lost since I'm using a SSD which is non volatile?

Currently, same risk whether you use L1 or L2. This is because cache index data cannot be updated in time. So even SSD is non-volatile, we still cannot restore data correctly if index database is corrupted.

SaccoBelmonte wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 6:16 am - Fetch project files.

L2 cache still can improve this kind of activity, without defer-write.

SaccoBelmonte wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 6:16 am
I was under the impression I could work in the SSD cache and by the end of the day I could flush the cache into the HDD. If a crash happened somewhere in the day the data wouldn't be lost since I'm using a SSD which is non volatile?

I would never risk working all day without a save with data that is not natively readable by the operating system in any kind of recovery scenario. As support said if the index is corrupted which could happen with some unexpected crash.

The whole point of PrimoCache is that it removes any aversion to frequent big saves that might be inconvenient because you are working with spinners. It very rapidly write caches (at the speed of memory) and the flush to the spinner is seamless. My personal preference is to never allow more than 60 seconds before flushing (and even that is risky) but sometimes I stretch out the write cache delay to 300 seconds.

It sounds like what you might want to do is to work in Windows and save the data files to the SSD during the day and at the end of the day run a quick batch file with Robocopy that mirrors your work to the hard drive.

But even then, PrimoCache will be of great benefit since L1 is so fast you can write cache and then have it rapidly save the "Windows" format files to the SSD as you work during the day with the files saved to the SSD saved as Windows readable files and not L2 cache files.

As an FYI, I have a 32 Gb system. I give 26 Gb to Primocache to take care of the caching and only run my system with 6 Gb RAM. I enjoy 95 % to 99 % cache hit rates all day long. I have 3 HDDs 8 Tb and I run a 450 Gb L2 Cache. The reality is that you only use about 5% of the data on all your drives on a day to day basis. My L2 at 450 Gb rarely gets half full.

Primo Ramdisk and a maximum RAM memory is better for you, if you can fit everything you need at a time in it!