Primocache For Gaming

[Karren Bangura]

Doyou know if L2ARC would cache most things that are read a few times in a short period if I modified the tunables? For example, a high max feed rate might let L2ARC cache new games after I launch them a couple times, like primocache does.

I looked into the man pages because of your post (I also have a pool without cache that has games on it) and it seems persistent L2ARC is already enabled by default or is there a difference between cache present when the pool was created and one that was added later?

The sentiment I got when reading up on it for my NAS and PC pool was that L2ARC was a last resort for some esoteric workload that would chew through my RAM more than the normal ARC. I have a 500GB SSD here so I as far as I understand it now I can easily put that in as a cache, not as large as it could be for 8TB but should help, no?

I think this is a difference in defaults between TrueNAS and openzfs, the latters man pages imply that the option is set to 1 and that contrary to what the TrueNAS docs say the cache gets rebuild async, as in not blocking the booting process.

I did run this software and followed instructions. Interestingly CrystalDiskMark utility showed read/write speeds of Gigabytes per seconds. But in actual test of copy a file from windows explorer (from internal SDD) to this HDD(external read/write values remained same as around 100MB/s.

I want to see if anyone have tested this software successfully or this software somehow fools the disk benchmarking tools to show huge numbers.If you have some time to download this software and make it work to increase the HDD speed, please share the procedure here.

Your HDD won't magically start working at over 9000MB/s, specially a SATA3 HDD.

And since you've specified a read/write speed of 100MB/s, my guess is that you have a 5400RPM HDD or an half-full HDD.

Effectively cache your frequently used applications, documents and other data into faster storage devices, accessing them at up to RAM-like or SSD-like speeds. Make your computer more responsive for creating, gaming and producing, with less boot and load times.

Complete write requests very quickly by temporarily storing incoming data into RAM or SSD storage first and writing them back to target disks later. Enable your computer to handle heavy or stream write IOs, while reducing writes and wear on disks.

This application is a scam reminding me of the "RAMDoubler" application. It probably works by hooking the Windows IOControl for disk access, putting the content the data CrystalDiskMark into a cache and returning the call to this system function. The test does not verify if the test data is really located on the disk. As user253751 and Tetsujin already stated this is a kind of RAM test.

If you are really paranoid and are operating on file system level you should only use software that uses pseudorandom data for speed tests.Pseudorandom data is near garbage and has the nice property of having high entropy (disorder). That data can hardly be compressed.

The software does intentionally cheat on a benchmark. The benchmark tries to measure the actual speed of a hard drive or SSD drive, not the speed of any RAM cache, and the software manages to work around that, tricking the benchmark into thinking you have a really fast hard drive.

But it doesn't matter. What matters is how much it helps you with the things you are doing. It will be useless if you copy 10GB video files all the time. But as the benchmark shows, it might be very effective if you use small amounts of data only. Like a few hundred megabytes in small files on a spinning hard drive.

I'd say try it out for free and find out if it helps with your usage. Then see the cost and use it or don't. And you want your data to be backed up: The OS will think that data is written when this software tells it is written. If you shut down your computer, most likely it will actually shut down when it thinks all caches are written to your drives. That could go wrong with this drive.

PS. There are high-end SSD drives nowadays with a small amount of fast and expensive SSD storage, and a huge amount of cheap and slower SSD storage. Small meaning gigabytes. So writing to the SSD will write to the small, expensive part which is fast, and then the SSD drive continuously moves data from small, fast to large, slow, cheap storage. That may actually write a 10GB file fast, and stay fast if you take breaks between large operations.

PS. I learned just recently there are SSD memory cells that can operate either as small, fast or large, slow memory cells, changeable when the drive is running. Right now I have a "2 TB" SSD drive that could operate as a fast 500GB or very slow 2TB drive or anything in between.

Let me sum it up, to be sure not to miss the point. You did not set up a cache on your SSD, you set up a cache on your HDD, and you copied a file from your SSD to your cached HDD.Two things to consider here:

I have tested this software extensively before buying it. I quickly gave up on CrytalMark that only shows irrelevant values. What matters to me is actual file operations. And I can testify that, as long as you keep in the limits of your cache, this software does what it tells it does.

But to answer completely to your questions, let me write a bit more about how I use this software.

I have a SATA cacheless SSD, 16GB of RAM. Software engineering has been my main job for 20+ years.

I have set up a 1.25GB of L1 Write Cache, with defer mode, buffer strategy, flush on sleep.

I don't care that much on prefetching data. My main reads are loading the OS (un-cached), loading Eclipse (once a day, always-on then), launching and closing several Firefox/Chrome windows and tabs (could be cached, but Windows keeps the programs in memory, so irrelevant).

I care a LOT about writing data.

Yes Sir, yes it does.

I'm not the only one to say it. See Dave's video, retired Microsoft engineer, and author of an Amiga cache software Supercharging Windows Disk Speeds

Is it the product for you? Well, try the demo. 30 days is a good amount of time to make up your mind. Run your computer as usual (ie, no CrystalMark), and see.Then you could add your answer here ^^

The main use of PrimoCache is multi-layered caching, using RAM and SSD as two tiers. Caching improves performance for frequently accessed files, at the expense of spending RAM or SSD space. It does not make your actual HDD faster.

It is highly useful software for knowledgeable power users, and for admins that run low-cost bare metal servers. It takes understanding of cache tiers and manual effort to set up, and is not important to most basic home users.

For M2 its does make a difference thought it is small.What primo did which made huge gains for me was for the raid HDD.In my scenario I have 1x2TB M2, 2x4TB HDD and a spare 512GB SSD.You can use a portion of your ram as cache for M2 but that wont make a big difference.

Real world performance increases are very noticeable.There are several fine tune settings such a deferred write etc, The more RAM the better & faster!Apps start much quicker. Example:Word 2019 up and running in about a second.Excel in under a second, Publisher almost instantaneously.Photoshop ready in a few seconds.File transfers super fast until buffer full.

My style is to automate as much as possible on my computers, with two separate local and two separate cloud backups. Then to drive the computer as fast it will go. Triple-digit speeds on the long straightaways and 75 MPH through the slowest curves are my preferences ?

I fear you miss the larger benefit. I have a 8tb drive and a 1tb NVME. I can install all my games onto the 8tb and primocache will store the most accessed files on the nvme and rotate them out as my habits change. Now I can have way more than 1tb of games installed and play whatever I want whenever I want. It typically will have all the most loaded files on the L2 cache when playing that first time at that point.

So I have to admit that I love buying equipment. I noticed that my computer I have been using for 4 years has only 16 gb of ram in it. I am not sure why. But the motherboard allows 64gb, so I am going for it. Will I realize any improvement?

I also upgrading to two m.2 SSDS because I just found out that the motherboard (GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 ) has two M.2 slots that I just never saw!

you will definitely see improvements. You can't have too much memory. Especially for orchestral music, we are fast approaching the point where people will be saying you need 64GB at minimum. I'm sure there are people saying that now.

Yes, if you're doing large orchestral projects with deeply-sampled libraries (like Micheal does), then it could make a big difference, especially if you optimize your VIs to make use of the extra RAM. But don't expect projects to load faster or playback to be smoother. You still have to read the data, which is still going to be throttled by disk latency, the I/O bus and the speed of the memory itself.

It's true that "you can never have too much RAM", insofar as there is no downside other than the money you've spent on it. However, there's no benefit if it never gets used. I have only 16GB here, and have yet to run out of physical memory. YMMV, of course.

If I had $1 for every person I know (mostly Mac users of course!) that bought more RAM to "speed up" his computer, only to find out it made ZERO difference, I'd have like 2 or 3 hundred bucks! If I had $1 for everyone that recommended to someone else to buy more RAM to speed up his or her computer I'd have enough to buy a 2010 Prius.

I've done seriously big projects for years, with over 100 tracks, Addictive Drums, GPO, Kontakt etc. etc. I don't use a TON of big sample libraries, and as explained, if you DO a lot you're in a different situation, but I've NEVER seen a project on my system use more than 4 GB. I upgraded from 8GB to 16GB of RAM at some point and saw ZERO difference in DAW use. Some games on the other hand did use it so it wasn't a waste of time.

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