Romex Software Forum

Hello everyone,

I was reading some of the older comments on this forum, and many of them recommended overprovisioning the L2 cache if it is an NVME SSD. I have since searched the web and I cannot find any definitive evidence that [Western Digital] NVME SSD drives require overprovisioning when they are 100% full and being used as an L2 cache. I wonder whether such WD drives have pre-allocated space for overprovisioning. I wondered whether @Support could please give some guidance as to whether overprovisioning is sill recommended?

Regards, Simon

Yes, Over-Provisioning (OP) is still recommended. Actually OP can increase the endurance of a solid-state drive and improve overall SSD performance even the ssd is not used with PrimoCache. Of course, the downside is that you use less space.

There are two types of OP: Factory and User. Factory OP is set by the manufacturer, generally 7%~28%, and the user cannot change it. User OP can be tuned via a vendor-provided tool. If you want a better lifespan when the ssd is used as L2 cache, you can set 15%~20% User OP.

Ur just use Intel Optane X1600P for write cache - it has almost eternal endurance.

Does creating a partition on an SSD, and then making it unallocated, effectively do the same thing as overprovisioning? I could have sworn I'd read that years ago.

Some SSD manufactures provide custom tools for over-provisioning. For eg. Samsung Magician for Samsung SSDs. If there is no special tool from the manufacturer, most SSDs can setup OP by doing secure-erase first (new SSDs do not need it) and then leaving the required space unallocated when partitioning. This method might not apply to some brands because they don't consider unallocated space as OP.
In summary, you need to check with the SSD manufacture first.