# About to go all out on a "24TB ssd" hence 3x seagate archive 8TB SMR hdd drives in raid 0



## er557 (May 25, 2019)

Had them laying around, two in the pc independently ( ntfs compression on, storage drives, terrible performance), another one new in stock, so of course I will make sure to have constant backup of the material, and mainly use the array for large game installs/ for performance/load times.
As with all my hdds, and even sata ssds, I will be caching them to a 300gb nvme partition for read/write as level 2, and level 1 is 16gb ram cache, using primo cache software.
Once the data is finished transferring, I will post the crystaldisk/ hdtune results.

sector size will be 8k, to avoid the 16tb windows limitation


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## natr0n (May 25, 2019)

SSD ballin


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## er557 (May 25, 2019)

I just had to google urban dictionary for "ballin"


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## newtekie1 (May 25, 2019)

I have a similar setup with my 24TB(well 30GB before RAID5), though I don't use an L1 because the data is too important to me.  I just dedicate an entire 500GB SSD solely as cache.  Works pretty well.


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## Solaris17 (May 27, 2019)

huh? I thought these were HDDs, they make an 8TB SSD variant?


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## er557 (May 27, 2019)

No, of course not, I meant the combined raid 0 performance will be equivalent to a 24tb ssd( 750Mb/s read/ write).  I have yet to prepare and benchmark it.


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## dgianstefani (May 27, 2019)

Lol, maybe in select measures of speed, but you will have nowhere near the performance of a real 24tb SSD.


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## er557 (May 27, 2019)

Dont forget I have level 1 and level 2 read/write cache via 350GB nvme partition, 16gb of dedicated ram cache, so I am sure the responsiveness will be good.


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## dgianstefani (May 27, 2019)

The amount of cache is irrelevant. To get 24tb of SSD you need to buy 24tb of SSD, there's no workaround.


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## er557 (May 27, 2019)

It's a hell of a workaround, mind you this is not an OS drive, I already have an nvme there, the page file is also on a different nvme.
I just need fast large game files to install and load, while all surrounding supporting drives are either nvme, ssd, or raid 0 of 7200rpm drives.
If I achieve this goal, I dont care if some random 4k or sequential read are not the exact match to a modern sata/ m.2 drive. If i have the data striped accross three drives , sharing the access speed, sequential read, and the workload, I am closer to this goal than a single 5900rpm drive alone.


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## John Naylor (May 27, 2019)

We often stay after hours in the office and play games together.   Since our main app is CAD, every box is a great gaming box (and no ... 2D / 3D CAD does not benefit from workstation cards, they are actually slower).  Every box has an SSD + SSHD with a backup OS on the SSHD also.  You might see a difference if you sit there with a  stopwatch but having done blind tests when we swith the boot drive from SSD to SSHD without telling anyone, nobody notices.

Here's a post from about 10 years ago ... nothing has changed.  Havn't checked to see if all links are still viable ... been 10 years and all.

===================================================








						Storage Reference Guide | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews
					

Enterprise Storage   	What is Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory? 	NetApp MAX Data Solution Brief 	Best practices for flash, Veeam and NAS storage 	Overview of contain




					faq.storagereview.com
				



SR Gaming DriveMark 2002    Single Drive = 519 IO/sec    RAID 0 = 529 IO/sec






						Western Digital's Raptors in RAID-0: Are two drives better than one?
					






					www.anandtech.com
				



*Western Digital's Raptors in RAID-0: Are two drives better than one?*

"If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop."






						Techware Labs - Articles - RAID and Gaming Performance
					

Techware Labs - Latest reviews of computer hardware, guides, and industry news.



					www.techwarelabs.com
				



_".....we did not see an increase in FPS through its use. Load times for levels and games was significantly reduced utilizing the Raid controller and array. As we stated we do not expect that the majority of gamers are willing to purchase greater than 4 drives and a controller for this kind of setup. While onboard Raid is an option available to many users you should be aware that using onboard Raid will mean the consumption of CPU time for this task and thus a reduction in performance that may actually lead to worse FPS. An add-on controller will always be the best option until they integrate discreet Raid controllers with their own memory into consumer level motherboards."_






						RAID-0 proved ineffective at boosting desktop application/game performance
					

Clicky, check out the bar graph towards the bottom of Eugene's post. SR will be posting a pretty comprehensive article on RAID, hopefully soon. The graph is a selection from the results obtained for that forthcoming article.  Even running _four_ WD740GDs in RAID-0 is not enough to match the...




					www.hardforum.com
				



_However, many have tried to justify/overlook those shortcomings by simply saying "It's faster." Anyone who does this is wrong, wasting their money, and buying into hype. Nothing more._






						The Best Mattresses, Pillows & Bedding...Reviewed | Suite 101
					

Getting a good night's sleep isn't always easy. Trust us to help you find the best mattresses, pillows, sheets, blankets to ensure your next rest is supremely comfortable.




					computer-drives-storage.suite101.com
				



_The real-world performance benefits possible in a single-user PC situation is not a given for most people, because the benefits rely on multiple independent, simultaneous requests. One person running most desktop applications may not see a big payback in performance because they are not written to do asynchronous I/O to disks. Understanding this can help avoid disappointment._



			http://www.scs-myung.com/v2/index.php?view=article&id=76&tmpl=component&print=1&page=&Itemid=55&option=com_content
		

_What about performance? This, we suspect, is the primary reason why so many users doggedly pursue the RAID 0 "holy grail." This inevitably leads to dissapointment by those that notice little or no performance gain.....As stated above, first person shooters rarely benefit from RAID 0.__ Frame rates will almost certainly not improve, as they are determined by your video card and processor above all else. In fact, theoretically your FPS frame rate may decrease, since many low-cost RAID controllers (anything made by Highpoint at the tiem of this writing, and most cards from Promise) implement RAID in software, so the process of splitting and combining data across your drives is done by your CPU, which could better be utilized by your game. That said, the CPU overhead of RAID0 is minimal on high-performance processors._

Even the HD manufacturers limit RAID's advantages to very specific applications and non of them involves gaming:


			http://westerndigital.com/en/products/raid/
		

===================================================

If load times bother you ..... an investment in SSDs is the solution.   I find that the PC is always ready for me before I am ready for it.  After launching the game, I'm loading web pages, launching discord, plugging on my headphone dongle, unplugging the charging cord, putting on headphones other game aids on my 2nd screen and the game is sitting there waiting before Im ready.  And of course, I take advantage of the break between work and play, by taki ng a bio, getting a snack or sammie or whatever.


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## er557 (May 27, 2019)

You are quoting articles that focus on desktop usage, gaming performance itself(not loading), OS boot time, general use, those things may benefit from lower latency , sometimes not so much with raid. But SUSTAINED TRANSFER RATE for LARGE files, which is what i need, due to having a backlog of multi TB of game files, incl. steam library; is where the raid-0 performance to be found, and the more drives the better. I explained I'm already covered for gaming performance , cpu overhead, OS load time, many small files and latencies. Countless youtube benches show the transfer rates close to ssd, also here's a related topic








						3 Hard disk on RAID0 possible?
					

I'm not sure but can someone tell me if it's possible to run 3 hard disks on RAID0? Would I be seeing gains over 2 hard disk setup which I'm running now?




					www.overclockers.com


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## lexluthermiester (May 27, 2019)

er557 said:


> You are quoting articles that focus on desktop usage, gaming performance itself(not loading), OS boot time, general use, those things may benefit from lower latency , sometimes not so much with raid. But SUSTAINED TRANSFER RATE for LARGE files, which is what i need, due to having a backlog of multi TB of game files, incl. steam library; is where the raid-0 performance to be found, and the more drives the better. I explained I'm already covered for gaming performance , cpu overhead, OS load time, many small files and latencies. Countless youtube benches show the transfer rates close to ssd, also here's a related topic
> 
> 
> 
> ...


RAID 5 would be an infinitely better/safer RAID array. RAID 0 is extremely risky. One drive failure of any kind often renders the entire array unreadable and unrecoverable. I'm going to repeat a catch-phrase I've been telling clients for decades; "Buy yourself an extra drive, go RAID 5." Thank yourself later.


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## er557 (May 27, 2019)

Of course, I know, but that disk space would be kind of wasted, and as I already have external backups, a separate NAS pc, and mostly intend to install games on the array, nothing too important, It will still be money spent on the drive, but I will certainly consider it for the future if any other files go there. The 3 drives are mostly identical, manufactured around the same time, and are supposed to have high MTBF. BTW, in RAID 5 any drive can fail and be replaced, or the parity data is all on the same backup drive which must not fail? also how is the speed affected by four drives/ access time.


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## lexluthermiester (May 27, 2019)

er557 said:


> BTW, in RAID 5 any drive can fail and be replaced, or the parity data is all on the same backup drive which must not fail? also how is the speed affected by four drives/ access time.


Any one drive can fail as parity and redundant data is spread across multiple drives. The array will still function(at degraded performance) with the failed drive until it can be replaced. Once replaced, depending on the controller and config, the array will either auto-repair itself or prompt the user to start the repair process. RAID 6 takes a similar approach to redundancy and up to two drives can fail without data loss in the array. RAID 5 requires a minimum of 3 drives to function and you loose the capacity of one drive to the parity and data redundancy functions, RAID 6 requires a minimum of 4 and you loose the capacity of two drives.


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## er557 (May 27, 2019)

I see, 
i guess it's either buy more drives now, or backup more often.
Might need to turn on macrium incremental backup on volumes other than the OS as well.


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## lexluthermiester (May 27, 2019)

er557 said:


> I see,
> i guess it's either buy more drives now, or backup more often.
> Might need to turn on macrium incremental backup on volumes other than the OS as well.


If, like you stated above, you're not using the array for critical data storage, then the performance advantage of RAID 0 will be useful. However, if you don't want to risk data loss, buying one more drive like the ones you have already(for a total of four) and using RAID 5 will provide the best balance between increased performance and data safety while maintaining the total storage capacity you desire. The reality is, reliability of modern drive is leaps and bounds higher and better than it was when RAID hardware and schemes were invented. While still certainly useful, it's not as critical as much to consumer and prosumer sectors as it was when drives were less reliable.


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## er557 (Jun 1, 2019)

update:
The raid worked a few days, tested with hd tach( in order to avoid the primo cache making eroneous results- like the speed of the ram/nvme), the burst speed of the array was 330MB/s, the average speed across the entire disk was 200MB/s.
However, the array collapsed then, with the event viewer stating "Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort1, was issued."
I narrowed it down to one of the disks, which had a different firmware version than the other two, and as archive shingled magnetic recording drives are not recommended for raid, the issue manifested itself.
So now I made a new array of two drives, the third one is separated and is a normal backup drive.
The sequential performance is a bit lower, but I hope they will be able to be stable for game installs(16TB raid 0 array).
I will mention that i have another array in the pc, made of 2x toshiba 5TB 7200 rpm identical drives,(10TB for game installs), and it has been running problem free for a long while now.


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## dgianstefani (Jun 1, 2019)

What a twist. HDD Raid array has issues and is not that fast.


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## newtekie1 (Jun 1, 2019)

er557 said:


> update:
> The raid worked a few days, tested with hd tach( in order to avoid the primo cache making eroneous results- like the speed of the ram/nvme), the burst speed of the array was 330MB/s, the average speed across the entire disk was 200MB/s.
> However, the array collapsed then, with the event viewer stating "Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort1, was issued."
> I narrowed it down to one of the disks, which had a different firmware version than the other two, and as archive shingled magnetic recording drives are not recommended for raid, the issue manifested itself.
> ...



I bet you are going to continue to have issues with those SMR drives in RAID.  The controller expects write commands to finish in a given time, or TLER to report to the controller that the write command has been received and the drive is processing it.  However, SMR drives have an extremely low write speed once the small area they have reserved that isn't SMR that is used as a write cache is exhausted.  When that cache is full and the write speed suddenly drops off, the RAID controller is going to see that as a drive failing and the array will fail.  It's just a sad reality with these SMR drives.

Since you have Primocache anyway, you'd probably be better off setting all the drives up as a JBOD.  Most controllers running in JBOD mode don't care about how fast the drives respond, as long as they do eventually respond.  You won't get the sequential write/read speeds, but Primocache should be absorbing most of the read/write speeds anyway in real world use, because sequential read/write speeds really mean nothing to most real world usage.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 1, 2019)

dgianstefani said:


> What a twist. HDD Raid array has issues and is not that fast.


That isn't what he said at all.


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## er557 (Jun 1, 2019)

what intrigues me, is the drive dropped out when pc was idle, it simply became unallocated. I was not using the array and nothing latest was written to it. I suspect it has to do with windows idle trying to optimize or defragment the volume. I will now opt out of this, for now no bad storachi logs in event log at all. 
I was at the time tempted to buy those SMR drives without really knowing their write performance. So containing nothing critical, I will see how they behave from this point on.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 1, 2019)

I have a 30TB array via iSCSI on a windows volume and defrag/optimize it at regular intervals. Trust me its not windows.


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## er557 (Jun 3, 2019)

The 16tb 2x drive array seems to run trouble free. However, I was concerned regarding cpu overhead, wondering whether it matters if I use intel RST suite/bios/ for the raid setup, or as current config, via windows disk management. Will using the bios mean hardware raid, also what is more fault tolerant towards the drives?


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## Vayra86 (Jun 3, 2019)

For a gaming backlog... kudos for all the effort and sharing, but I fail to see the value of doing this entirely.

Do you play 24TB of games at a time? I mean... a game install takes what, 3-10 minutes these days with a half decent SSD and CPU, depending on game size. Older games take ... well if you don't blink you might get to see the green bar move left to right before it finishes.

Or is this mostly just the 'can-do' idea of it?


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## er557 (Jun 3, 2019)

Sure, can-do, 
also the fact I have a huge backlog of games I haven't installed yet, lacking the time to do so, dating back to 2006, 
plus if already having the drives sit there, I figured the performance improvement will be handy. If not usefull, I can always dismantle the array.


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## Vayra86 (Jun 3, 2019)

er557 said:


> Sure, can-do,
> also the fact I have a huge backlog of games I haven't installed yet, lacking the time to do so, dating back to 2006,
> plus if already having the drives sit there, I figured the performance improvement will be handy. If not usefull, I can always dismantle the array.



All good and subbed to see if you succeed (and get a meaningful bonus out of it) 

But I do see some irony in having no time to install something while spending hours on getting a RAID setup together with a ton of hardware involved


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## er557 (Jun 3, 2019)

I was so traumatized by the performance of a single smr drive when ntfs compression was enabled, I wanted to get rid of this huge bottleneck in otherwise a monster pc.


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## 64K (Jun 3, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> For a gaming backlog... kudos for all the effort and sharing, but I fail to see the value of doing this entirely.
> 
> Do you play 24TB of games at a time? I mean... a game install takes what, 3-10 minutes these days with a half decent SSD and CPU, depending on game size. Older games take ... well if you don't blink you might get to see the green bar move left to right before it finishes.
> 
> Or is this mostly just the 'can-do' idea of it?



I can understand why some people want to keep their library of games that they haven't played and games that they might  want to replay on their drive. For people living in the USA the internet can be pretty bad depending on where you live. We seem to be behind most of the world in that respect.

It was only last year that we could upgrade to something better than 3 mb service. It would take me 12 hours to download a 20 GB game and some games are much, much larger than that. Now we have 150 mb service and I can download the same game in 15 minutes.

In addition some areas here in the USA have data caps. They might only be able to download 150 GB a month.


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## er557 (Jun 3, 2019)

my TB's of space fly away like hell, and i'm talking about a total of 70TB pc storage space. That's what happens when you have 1Gbps fiber connection....
Never enough TB's, never enough cores....


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## dgianstefani (Jun 3, 2019)

In the age of 2TB SSDs for £250, I don't see why people still use spinning rust.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 3, 2019)

dgianstefani said:


> In the age of 2TB SSDs for £250, I don't see why people still use spinning rust.


Because 8TB SSD's don't cost $150(120 UKP currently) and are not available in consumer grade models. You failed to understand because you did not look at the big picture and did not do the short math.


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## dgianstefani (Jun 3, 2019)

I failed to understand because I'm not someone who accepts compromises.

If you're too poor to afford 8tb of proper storage don't buy 8tb of storage.


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## er557 (Jun 3, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> Because 8TB SSD's don't cost $150(120 UKP currently) and are not available in consumer grade models.



got already four ssd's in this pc, but only for critical speed bound tasks,i.e. nvme OS, nvme cache, some sata ssd's from previous use now used for small game installs. Steam library nvme.
Unfortunately for hoarders like me, with 17TB of game setup files backlog, I still heavily need and use spinners. Also for external backup, OS image backups, no ssd will be ever enough.

these are updated benchmarks, first is a single WD 2TB black hdd, across entire drive,







next is the raid 0 array of two 8TB smr seagate drives, across entire drive space


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## dgianstefani (Jun 3, 2019)

Wow, half the speed of a single sata SSD. Who actually has 20TB of game files?


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 3, 2019)

dgianstefani said:


> Wow, half the speed of a single sata SSD. Who actually has 20TB of game files?


I do, which is why I invest in 100GB MDisc Bluray and 8TB HDD's myself. And that isn't mentioning my audio and video collection which takes up an equal  amount of space. Your needs and usage model does not apply to everyone and just because you don't see the need for something doesn't mean that the something in question is not needed by others for their own purposes and usage scenario.

And for the record, "spinning rust" still accounts for more than 60% of all storage drives sold in the world last quarter. So clearly much of the world still see's need for that technology. Inexpensive high capacity storage to suppliment my boot drive? Yes please!


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## dgianstefani (Jun 3, 2019)

For the record, people buy things because they are cheap, not because they are the smart option. There's no real logical argument to be made to buy mechanical hard drives in 2019 as a private user. For corporations maybe, since they frequently replace the drives before they degrade.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 3, 2019)

dgianstefani said:


> For the record, people buy things because they are cheap, not because they are the smart option.


Incorrect, people buy things because of what those things can do for them. People simultaneously look for the best value/bargain for their money. And with that statement you effectively contradicted yourself..


dgianstefani said:


> There's no real logical argument to be made to buy mechanical hard drives in 2019 as a private user.


Your opinion, *not* supported by retail sales data and factual reality.


dgianstefani said:


> For corporations maybe, since they frequently replace the drives before they degrade.


Also incorrect. I work in the IT field. Most business's and enterprise's do not replace drives until they fail, as general rule.


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## newtekie1 (Jun 4, 2019)

er557 said:


> these are updated benchmarks, first is a single WD 2TB black hdd, across entire drive,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Wow, haven't seen HD Tach in a long time!  Everyone is pretty much of the opinion that it isn't a good test for modern real-world use.

Try running CrystalDiskMark with 6.0.2 set to 16GB or 32GB.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 4, 2019)

newtekie1 said:


> Wow, haven't seen HD Tach in a long time! Everyone is pretty much of the *opinion* that it isn't a good test for modern real-world use.


Key word there. HD Tach might be older but it isn't obsolete yet. Still a valid benchmark utility.

However, CrystalDiskMark is newer and takes advanced SSD features into account.


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## er557 (Jun 4, 2019)

every benchmark i've tried, bar hd tune which had other issues,
displayed the cached results of primo cache and astronomical figures for hard drives and ssds, it was measuring in effect the speed of my ram/nvme.
Crystal is used by me mainly for nvme measure, and volumes which are not cached.
Even a simple large file transfer is no longer a valid bench as I see cached numbers in the order of 800MB/s


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## newtekie1 (Jun 4, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> Key word there. HD Tach might be older but it isn't obsolete yet. Still a valid benchmark utility.
> 
> However, CrystalDiskMark is newer and takes advanced SSD features into account.



I don't think ti is, it might be a valid benchmark about as valid as the Cinebench OpenGL test is as a real world gaming benchmark.  Yes, it is still a benchmark, but it's not giving you any useful real world data.  

It also isn't measuring any write performance.



er557 said:


> every benchmark i've tried, bar hd tune which had other issues,
> displayed the cached results of primo cache and astronomical figures for hard drives and ssds, it was measuring in effect the speed of my ram/nvme.
> Crystal is used by me mainly for nvme measure, and volumes which are not cached.
> Even a simple large file transfer is no longer a valid bench as I see cached numbers in the order of 800MB/s



Then pause the cache before you run the benchmarks.


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## er557 (Jun 4, 2019)

Cache paused!
These are the results regarding the 16TB raid 0 smr archive drive array x2




The following is the result of 2x toshiba 7200 rpm 5TB array, 10TB raid 0




i am now a happy camper knowing my games will load fast,
and steam folder is on nvme


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## juiseman (Jun 4, 2019)

I still have drives from 2005 (or earlier) that are still working. I'm Sure there are guys that have drives way older than that still kicking.
Cheap SSD's may degrade well before that. I bet spinning drives will be around for quite some time. From those benchmarks; they are creeping 
on speeds of some of the budget SSD's from 7-8 years ago already. 

Just my opinion.......


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## er557 (Jun 4, 2019)

On a side note, I was wondering is there a purpose for caching my nvme OS drive with free RAM( i have plenty). besides benchmarks results, would it speed up boot/ work scenarios?. I do know windows itself does this via superfetch and the like.
I could setup level 1 cache from some of the ram, and point it towards the OS nvme and the steam nvme. The fact samsung itself does not do rapid mode on nvme has me wondering though...


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 4, 2019)

newtekie1 said:


> I don't think ti is, it might be a valid benchmark about as valid as the Cinebench OpenGL test is as a real world gaming benchmark. Yes, it is still a benchmark, but it's not giving you any useful real world data.


Not only is that a poor comparison, but it's ill informed. But I digress..



er557 said:


> On a side note, I was wondering is there a purpose for caching my nvme OS drive with free RAM( i have plenty).


Short answer; not really.


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## er557 (Jun 4, 2019)

great! now i have to google "digress"...

edit:



lexluthermiester said:


> Short answer; not really.











						Crucial’s FREE Momentum Cache Works on Any NVMe SSD! – Our First Look at RAM Caching on NVMe SSDs - The SSD Review
					

You heard that right. This is the first time we are exploring RAM caching on an NVMe SSD in this fas




					www.thessdreview.com
				




Only concern I have regarding ram caching is it's volatile, and any power loss(have ups) may corrupt OS drive data.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 6, 2019)

er557 said:


> Only concern I have regarding ram caching is it's volatile, and any power loss(have ups) may corrupt OS drive data.


And that's the concern, data integrity. NVME drives are blazing fast as-is. They don't really need caching for 99.9% of usage scenario's.


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## er557 (Jun 6, 2019)

I see; 
 more specificaly so, the fact that windows itself does this with prefetching data to ram as it is, and the nvme drive itself has SLC and DRAM caches as well. So one might just see better benchmark results as a result of measuring ram speed, and mostly not much more.


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## er557 (Jun 10, 2019)

Update: Out of sheer curiosity, and the fact I have 96gb of mostly unsued ram, I went ahead and enabled another 32GB of level 1 ram cache for the OS nvme drive in primo cache, on top of the already assigned 24gb data/spinners/ level 1 cache. To avoid any chance of data corruption, I simply disabled the deferred write feature, so there is no write delay/buffer, similar to how samsung rapid mode works.
I must say that besides benchmarks, IT DOES speed up my system boot time immenselly, I also chose to prefetch the last cache state and lock it, to resume using it again more efficiently.
What this also benefits is internet browsing speed, as the entire browser cache is kept in RAM, also the OS browser files and data as well. When all used up, I still have 30% of my ram free, after OS, caches, superfetch and the like.
I will continue to monitor the disk check results, and be watchful for any data errors if any.





edit:
My page file is set to a constant 30GB size, and is placed on a separate 2TB nvme drive, also running @pcie x4.


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## kapqa (Jun 10, 2019)

Short digression here, i have NVME 500 GB and here is a benchmark (running Windows 7).
But when used the caching software, it really becomes a lot quicker, atleast in benchmark.
I have a second m.2 slot and would like to Raid0 2 nvme with windows 7, but it seems that the Raid Features from AMD (running a X470) are only supported with Windows 10.


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## er557 (Jun 10, 2019)

would you make a screenshot of your primo cache settings, incl. level 1 and level 2, also, how large is your cache?
I feel your results are a bit exagerated, although mine are slower- they might represent real world data a bit better? 
Also, the version of primo cache might be at play, or the OS type- win 7 vs. win 10, and of course the nvme driver. Mind you, I also have advanced write cache in device manager enabled as well


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## kapqa (Jun 10, 2019)

4 to 6 gb as i have only 16gb RAM available, but now the demo is over. I am still thinking if activating the software or not. It seems quite fast, but don't know enough of the risks involved.

EDIT: What do you mean with "Advanced Write Cache" in Device Manager? Is this a feature of Windows 10? I have already tried to upgrade Windows 10 several times but always reverted back to Windows 7 as it felt more "sober" to me. The Benchmarks with Windows 10 (geekbenche 4) are normally quite substantially higher, but browsing seems alot quicker here on Windows 7 (but maybe i am just illuding myself


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## er557 (Jun 10, 2019)

You might try a torrent for that...


funny tidbit: this is the benchmark with caching on, of a regular sata ssd 500gb, very impressive, however this is a separate cache task than the OS drive:


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## phill (Jun 10, 2019)

In ways this thread has been pretty decent and informative, I just wanted to say a thank you to anyone that's took time to run some tests on their hardware to show others what they are getting  

At least I know if I felt like it, I could raid some newer drives and get fairly decent results with them for my Steam library..  2Tb is a right pain of a library... I'm seriously tempted to do something else but I digress  

Side point, I thought HD Tach did come with a write test as well or was that for registered versions only??



lexluthermiester said:


> I do, which is why I invest in 100GB MDisc Bluray and 8TB HDD's myself. And that isn't mentioning my audio and video collection which takes up an equal  amount of space. Your needs and usage model does not apply to everyone and just because you don't see the need for something doesn't mean that the something in question is not needed by others for their own purposes and usage scenario.
> 
> And for the record, "spinning rust" still accounts for more than 60% of all storage drives sold in the world last quarter. So clearly much of the world still see's need for that technology. Inexpensive high capacity storage to suppliment my boot drive? Yes please!



I can't find 100Gb discs very easily but instead use a few 25Gb or 50Gb discs instead   I think it's a little cheaper that way


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 10, 2019)

phill said:


> I can't find 100Gb discs very easily but instead use a few 25Gb or 50Gb discs instead  I think it's a little cheaper that way


True, and I'm not denying they're pricey. They only get used for projects that need more than 50GB of data space on a single disc, which isn't very often. Otherwise, like you I use 25's and 50's.


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## er557 (Jun 10, 2019)

I snagged these packs from japan, a pack of five 128GB(!) discs for 50$, you do need a compatible pioneer drive or newer firmware installed to support them though, that's bd-xl or higher









						5pack Sony Bd-r Printable HD Blu-ray 4x Blank Disc Media BDR 128gb Japan for sale online | eBay
					

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 5pack Sony Bd-r Printable HD Blu-ray 4x Blank Disc Media BDR 128gb Japan at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!



					www.ebay.com
				




edit: this guy seems to have made only one sell, better go to someone more reputable like so:











						5pack Sony Bd-r Printable HD Blu-ray 4x Blank Disc Media BDR 128gb Japan for sale online | eBay
					

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 5pack Sony Bd-r Printable HD Blu-ray 4x Blank Disc Media BDR 128gb Japan at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!



					www.ebay.com


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 10, 2019)

er557 said:


> I snagged these packs from japan, a pack of five 128GB(!) discs for 50$, you do need a compatible pioneer drive or newer firmware installed to support them though, that's bd-xl or higher
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I usually get these or something similar;








						M DISC VERBATIM BDXL 100GB 4X Branded Logo 10 pk Disc - Jewel Case  | eBay
					

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for M DISC VERBATIM BDXL 100GB 4X Branded Logo 10 pk Disc - Jewel Case at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!



					www.ebay.com


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## phill (Jun 10, 2019)

Wow they are expensive!!  Buy a USB pen drive, might save you a load of cash but get an encrypted model lol Could just buy hard drives for that price for the discs as well lol


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## er557 (Jun 10, 2019)

Yeah but he gets them for long term archiving, these are M DISCs, what are known to last 1000 years, made of specific materials. That's why they're pricy. I dont invest so much as i trust the blue ray xl technology enough and intend to save them in a comfortable environment.
What's more, even hard drives and thumb drives are not forever.


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 10, 2019)

phill said:


> Wow they are expensive!!


Um true, but there is a reason I use them...


er557 said:


> *Yeah but he gets them for long term archiving*, these are M DISCs, what are known to last 1000 years, made of specific materials. That's why they're pricey.


^This. I can afford them and what I'm backing up needs dependable long term viability. Most stuff I backup goes on 25GB or 50GB standard discs record at the lowest possible speed for a rock solid burn.


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## phill (Jun 11, 2019)

er557 said:


> Yeah but he gets them for long term archiving, these are M DISCs, what are known to last 1000 years, made of specific materials. That's why they're pricy. I dont invest so much as i trust the blue ray xl technology enough and intend to save them in a comfortable environment.
> What's more, even hard drives and thumb drives are not forever.





lexluthermiester said:


> Um true, but there is a reason I use them...
> ^This. I can afford them and what I'm backing up needs dependable long term viability. Most stuff I backup goes on 25GB or 50GB standard discs record at the lowest possible speed for a rock solid burn.



I can understand why you use them and see that they have their advantages but whatever data you have on the discs, it must be very important to be on that as a backup medium... 

With a 100GB+ to burn, I take it @lexluthermiester, it takes a few hours to burn a disc?


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## lexluthermiester (Jun 11, 2019)

phill said:


> I can understand why you use them and see that they have their advantages but whatever data you have on the discs, it must be very important to be on that as a backup medium...


Indeed. Business documents and records, family photo's and video's for examples.


phill said:


> With a 100GB+ to burn, I take it @lexluthermiester, it takes a few hours to burn a disc?


Depending on the speed selected, 50 to 70 minutes.


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## er557 (Jun 11, 2019)

I feel with today's burners, that have multiple protections, it is ok to burn at recommended speed(x4,  x8), especially if it's M DISC, having by this cut the burning time by four or six times over


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## EarthDog (Jun 13, 2019)

You've got a dual socket 36c/72t system... and you are worried about CPU overhead?


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## er557 (Jun 13, 2019)

where did i say that???


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## EarthDog (Jun 13, 2019)

Post 24.



er557 said:


> However, I was concerned regarding cpu overhead,


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## er557 (Jun 13, 2019)

er557 said:


> The 16tb 2x drive array seems to run trouble free. However, I was concerned regarding cpu overhead, wondering whether it matters if I use intel RST suite/bios/ for the raid setup, or as current config, via windows disk management. Will using the bios mean hardware raid, also what is more fault tolerant towards the drives?



I know I have 72 threads, I was still asking whether windows disk management is a software raid and intel board RST is hardware, it's still a legitimate question. You know, despite 72 threads, my AIO still roars from time to time, temps go up and I have no idea what the hell is taxing it so much sometimes.


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## EarthDog (Jun 13, 2019)

You asked where you said it, like you never did. Just pointing it out since you asked!


er557 said:


> I know I have 72 threads, I was still asking whether windows disk management is a software raid and intel board RST is hardware, it's still a legitimate question. You know, despite 72 threads, my AIO still roars from time to time, temps go up and I have no idea what the hell is taxing it so much sometimes.


Hardware RAID is through an add in card. Anything through your motherboard and not a card on the motherboard is software RAID. 

Regardless of the amount of threads available temperatures will go up on use... hence why the AIO 'roars'.


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## Nater (Jun 13, 2019)

John Naylor said:


> We often stay after hours in the office and play games together.   Since our main app is CAD, every box is a great gaming box (and no ... 2D / 3D CAD does not benefit from workstation cards, they are actually slower).  Every box has an SSD + SSHD with a backup OS on the SSHD also.  You might see a difference if you sit there with a  stopwatch but having done blind tests when we swith the boot drive from SSD to SSHD without telling anyone, nobody notices.


I literally just made an account to comment on something and backed out, because I didn't want to make someone feel stupid.  I couldn't leave this one alone.

2D/3D CAD does not benefit from workstation cards? What CAD software are you using?


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## er557 (Jun 13, 2019)

First of all, welcome to TPU, but starting with your first ever post with a critique to a 2000 post user, and as such anyone can make subjective mistakes, as it is about card performance, You'd be better off with a more subtle approach...

edit: nevermind, you edited your post, so all is good


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## Nater (Jun 13, 2019)

That _was_ subtle for me.   Sorry to go off topic.  Thread caught my eye being what the OP was up to...I've got some older spinners piling up, be nice to RAID them up in an extra box, and then he started talking SSD cache and this Primo...I'm at work atm, but I've got a lot of research to do now to see if what's he's up to would be worth it for me.


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## er557 (Jun 13, 2019)

yeah , i will see if what he's up to is worth it to me either,.... wait- i'm the OP


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## kapqa (Jun 14, 2019)

er557 said:


> would you make a screenshot of your primo cache settings, incl. level 1 and level 2, also, how large is your cache?
> I feel your results are a bit exagerated, although mine are slower- they might represent real world data a bit better?
> Also, the version of primo cache might be at play, or the OS type- win 7 vs. win 10, and of course the nvme driver. Mind you, I also have advanced write cache in device manager enabled as well



i used this primo cache software only on demo, so the above screenshots are probably 1nvme + 1tb hdd togethter with 4-6gb ram + defer write (the third screenshot).
dont remember any other settings , besides the ticking of deferwrite and setting the proper amount of ram cache.

the below screenshot is with 1 nvme and primo cache around 6gb ram and defer write on windows 7
the sata ssd keeps up very well.


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