Should i buy primocache?

[Mussels]

Having found this thread when it got linked from a newer thread.

I feel the best use of this program is making it run like the ZFS L2 cache setup.

So basically use a NAND drive to accelerate a Spindle, and in addition if you have a UPS (ideally with auto hibernate/shutdown setup on low battery in case unattended) then also enable write-defer for NAND drives.

So basically a configurable software version of the SSHD concept.

primocache lets you assign an SSD as a cache for other drives (SATA or NVME to speed up mech) as well as RAM to speed up all of that (or just RAM alone)
Personally, i've been using it to reduce writes on SSD's - especially useful when i had to torrent to my laptop with a WD green and watched the write endurance tank


Heres an example: In the 30 minutes my PC has been on, the cache hasnt been super helpful on the reads. Just under a 20% hitrate.
What it has done, is buffered the writes and prevented some duplicate writes, so that 15% less writing overall has been done.
Is that a lot of writes? No... but random small writes are the ones that burn out SSD's, so they're the ones killing off QLC and budget drives before their time should be up. 15% longer life span is a huge win, and QLC drives or those using psuedo-SLC caches might multiply the benefits of those reductions.

They have a full length article on this - essentially by using TRIM, if a deleted file was about to be written again (such as repeat stuff from a browser cache) it just un-deletes it, saving those writes entirely.
Example: Reduce Wear on Solid-State Drives by Defer-Write (romexsoftware.com)

 

[chrcoluk]

Are your reads a RAM cache or storage backed? I am not a fan of RAM accelerators on desktops as its going to be a cold empty cache on every boot up, but can work well with high uptime such as on a server.

Definitely tempted to test this on my laptop to see affect on NAND writes, those writes are mostly logs and registry database writes including the journaling. So the writes will be small write topups multiple times a minute, which seems a prime use case for write-defer.

 

[Mussels]

Are your reads a RAM cache or storage backed? I am not a fan of RAM accelerators on desktops as its going to be a cold empty cache on every boot up, but can work well with high uptime such as on a server.

Definitely tempted to test this on my laptop to see affect on NAND writes, those writes are mostly logs and registry database writes including the journaling. So the writes will be small write topups multiple times a minute, which seems a prime use case for write-defer.

primocache lets you choose to make a new cache or to save and re-use it, mines not set to save and re-use (the odds of my overclocking causing an error are too high, imo)

 

[war59312]

Here is before and after with Samsung SSD 980 PRO 1TB.

PrimoCache set to 8GB.

Oddly, RND4K Q32T1 Write is slower.

CPU: AMD Ryzen™ 9 7900X
RAM: KINGSTON 32GB (2 x 16GB) FURY Renegade DDR5 6000MT/s, CL32, Black/Silver, RGB LED, DIMM Memory
Motherboard: ASUS ProArt X670E-Creator WIFI, AMD X670 Chipset, AM5, ATX Motherboard

 

[Mussels]

You dont use primocache to boost your benchmarks for best-case performance

You use it to reduce fragmentation or wear and tear on drives in their worst case scenarios

 

[Talley]

Hello,

New member here and found this thread when I recently installed primocache. I just wanted to share my reasoning for the win in my system.

System Purpose: Video & Photo Editing/Storage & 10% gaming

Asus Z690 Creator Mobo
13,900K
64GB DDR5 5600
4070Ti
2TB 980 Pro main drive
500GB Crucial P3 Plus (Dedicated to primocache for my raid array)
4ea 16TB WD Drives in Raid 5 for 48TB raid array for storage (currently using almost 11TB of space)
850W Corsair PS
Fractal Meshify 2 Case

My issue is everything gets imported into lightroom and my catalog is on my 2TB samsung main drive but my actual files are on my storage raid drive. I don't feel like splitting up the actual photo/video files because I prefer to just import from the card directly to the raid drive. I also use backblaze for online backup too. (this is my strategy for my data protection, I keep everything on the media cards until I verify backblaze has backd them up). What I'm going through now is seeing a massive performance increase from working off of my raid drive by using the dedicated 500GB crucial as L2 cache for the raid drive and I've allocated 24GB of my ram for L1 cache.

My original strategy for my editing was to put the video on the main drive and work on editing from it and then move everything over to the raid drive for storing however I'm seeing that I can now just throw everything on the raid array and work off it it without any issues of speed. So while I'm not worried about my gaming I did want to share one area where this software has a huge benefit.

I'm still testing but crystalmark is showing massive improvements but I'm also still tweaking with it's various settings to see if I can fine tune it.

*Disclaimer: I do not use this for caching my main drive. it's SSD performance is fabulous. Primocache is only for my raid array.

 

[electrowind]

Hello,

New member here and found this thread when I recently installed primocache. I just wanted to share my reasoning for the win in my system.

System Purpose: Video & Photo Editing/Storage & 10% gaming

Asus Z690 Creator Mobo
13,900K
64GB DDR5 5600
4070Ti
2TB 980 Pro main drive
500GB Crucial P3 Plus (Dedicated to primocache for my raid array)
4ea 16TB WD Drives in Raid 5 for 48TB raid array for storage (currently using almost 11TB of space)
850W Corsair PS
Fractal Meshify 2 Case

My issue is everything gets imported into lightroom and my catalog is on my 2TB samsung main drive but my actual files are on my storage raid drive. I don't feel like splitting up the actual photo/video files because I prefer to just import from the card directly to the raid drive. I also use backblaze for online backup too. (this is my strategy for my data protection, I keep everything on the media cards until I verify backblaze has backd them up). What I'm going through now is seeing a massive performance increase from working off of my raid drive by using the dedicated 500GB crucial as L2 cache for the raid drive and I've allocated 24GB of my ram for L1 cache.

My original strategy for my editing was to put the video on the main drive and work on editing from it and then move everything over to the raid drive for storing however I'm seeing that I can now just throw everything on the raid array and work off it it without any issues of speed. So while I'm not worried about my gaming I did want to share one area where this software has a huge benefit.

I'm still testing but crystalmark is showing massive improvements but I'm also still tweaking with it's various settings to see if I can fine tune it.

*Disclaimer: I do not use this for caching my main drive. it's SSD performance is fabulous. Primocache is only for my raid array.

Thank you for sharing your experience with Primocache and how it has improved your system's performance for your video and photo editing purposes. It's great to hear that you have found a solution that works for your workflow and that Primocache has provided a significant performance boost for your setup.

Using a dedicated SSD as a caching drive for your RAID array is a great way to boost its performance without having to split up your data. By utilizing L2 and L1 caching with Primocache, you can take advantage of the high-speed SSD to accelerate data access for frequently used files and data.

It's important to keep in mind that performance gains with caching software like Primocache can vary depending on your specific hardware and workload, so it's a good idea to continue testing and tweaking the settings to find the best configuration for your particular setup.

 

[Mussels]

Hello,

New member here and found this thread when I recently installed primocache. I just wanted to share my reasoning for the win in my system.

System Purpose: Video & Photo Editing/Storage & 10% gaming

Asus Z690 Creator Mobo
13,900K
64GB DDR5 5600
4070Ti
2TB 980 Pro main drive
500GB Crucial P3 Plus (Dedicated to primocache for my raid array)
4ea 16TB WD Drives in Raid 5 for 48TB raid array for storage (currently using almost 11TB of space)
850W Corsair PS
Fractal Meshify 2 Case

My issue is everything gets imported into lightroom and my catalog is on my 2TB samsung main drive but my actual files are on my storage raid drive. I don't feel like splitting up the actual photo/video files because I prefer to just import from the card directly to the raid drive. I also use backblaze for online backup too. (this is my strategy for my data protection, I keep everything on the media cards until I verify backblaze has backd them up). What I'm going through now is seeing a massive performance increase from working off of my raid drive by using the dedicated 500GB crucial as L2 cache for the raid drive and I've allocated 24GB of my ram for L1 cache.

My original strategy for my editing was to put the video on the main drive and work on editing from it and then move everything over to the raid drive for storing however I'm seeing that I can now just throw everything on the raid array and work off it it without any issues of speed. So while I'm not worried about my gaming I did want to share one area where this software has a huge benefit.

I'm still testing but crystalmark is showing massive improvements but I'm also still tweaking with it's various settings to see if I can fine tune it.

*Disclaimer: I do not use this for caching my main drive. it's SSD performance is fabulous. Primocache is only for my raid array.

A RAID array is the perfect situation for a cache
You can also use an SSD as the cache for the RAID array, and then RAM cache for the SSD with primocache

 

[80251]

Considering windows has its own HDD/SSD cache in memory what's the point of the primocache L1 cache (unless you have gobs of spare system memory)?

 

[Shrek]

The hard drive cache is normally relatively small

That is why I got a hybrid drive with 8GB solid state cache

 

[LabRat 891]

As someone who currently isn't using their license... Yes. Get it. Even if it's just for 'futzing around' it's fun seeing how each different option works. I'm probably some kind of nerd-freak, but I enjoyed 'playing with' PrimoCache at least as much as equally priced video games (and I got at least as much 'gameplay' time as a modern single-player game; with plans for 'deploying' the software in the future.)

Also, you can use PrimoCache to 'replace' Intel-supported-only 'Optane Features':
You can get cheap(used) M.2 B/M-Key PCIe x2 '16GB' Optane M10s, or M.2 M-key PCIe x4 58GB-118GB Optane P1600Xs at liquidation pricing(new).
Grab an appropriate (and VERY inexpensive) adapter card, and you can slot these Optane M.2 drives into literally ANY interface with at least 1 lane of PCIe 1.0 (or newer)!
The low latency and extreme write-endurance is what you're after w/ Optane as Cache; even bandwidth-limited on PCIe1.0 x1, they make fantastic PrimoCache and Page File drives.
(as a non-boot drive, this works even on ancient platforms.).
You could even DIY yourself 'ReadyBoost on Steroids' by slotting an Optane NVMe drive into a USB NVMe enclosure, and point PrimoCache at the UASP USB Optane drive.

Oh, and PrimoCache will see and use Windows Storage Spaces 'Software RAID0' too. I may or may not have had a 16x16GB Optane M10 'striped' Windows Storage Space and PrimoCache going on retired crypto mining kit.

 

[lexluthermiester]

That is why I got a hybrid drive with 8GB solid state cache

I wonder how one of those hybrid drives would perform with this program?

 

[LabRat 891]

I wonder how one of those hybrid drives would perform with this program?

Ideally, and as expected by spec(s): It would 'just work', since most Hybrid HDDs impliment their caching 'on-drive' and 'transparently'. However, I wouldn't be so sure, in practice. Both of the Seagate 500GB/8GB 2.5" SATA hybrid drives I had seemed to have 'hiccups' on some platforms.
I'd not be surprised if 'adding another intermediate cache' may cause errors or some kind of driver crash.
-I have managed to get PrimoCache to effectively 'panic/overflow', with symptoms resembling a bad cable / I/O Interruption. Don't let this dissuade you; I was playing with it, and basically *trying* to get it to 'break'

 

[lexluthermiester]

Ideally, and as expected by spec(s): It would 'just work', since most Hybrid HDDs impliment their caching 'on-drive' and 'transparently'. However, I wouldn't be so sure, in practice. Both of the Seagate 500GB/8GB 2.5" SATA hybrid drives I had seemed to have 'hiccups' on some platforms.
I'd not be surprised if 'adding another intermediate cache' may cause errors or some kind of driver crash.
-I have managed to get PrimoCache to effectively 'panic/overflow', with symptoms resembling a bad cable / I/O Interruption. Don't let this dissuade you; I was playing with it, and basically *trying* to get it to 'break'

If I've learned anything from this software it's that it has had a few surprises. As a result, I won't make any presumptions about it. That said, I really would like to see what it does with a Hybrid drive. Perhaps I'll buy one on Ebay and experiment.

 

[80251]

If you had a PC with 64 GiB or 128 GiB of system RAM and primocache with a 16 GiB or 32GiB L1 cache what would be the point of directstorage?

I used to use primocache to cache my Toshiba 2 TiB HDD and Windows 10 OS 320 GiB HDD to 3 samsung 850 Pro SSD's I had. Once the Toshiba 2 TiB HDD died (after only a few years of service and without having any flagged SMART statistics ) I migrated my data over to a Samsung 850 QVO 4 TiB, picked up a cheapish 1 TiB Hynix SK Gold NVME M.2 and use it as a R/W L2 cache for my slow QLC Samsung 850 QVO.

 

[Wye]

There's nothing to "believe". I literally just tested it (1. Picked a game at random, Mark of the Ninja (and it's the GOG offline installer version so no client running spending time doing DRM checks), 2. Start it from a 5,400rpm HDD then a SATA SSD then a RAMDisk (with a cold boot in-between each to clear the Windows Cache) and 3. Record "time from start click until reaching the main menu":-

A. (5,400rpm HDD) = 12.1s
B. (MX500 SSD) = 3.9s
C. (RamDisk) = 3.8s

^ And that's with the entire game pre-cached (a 100% perfect cache prediction hit rate of a game that completely fits into RAM) vs a slow (by modern standards) SATA SSD. For larger games that won't fit into a RAMDisk, or perhaps playing something else the algorithm hasn't cached, the 3.9 vs 3.8s would be reduced even more as it'll be loading direct from the SSD anyway. As I said, regardless of the Quattuordecillion Yottabytes per FemtoSecond CrystalDiskMark sequential marketing screenshots, real world game load times = depreciating gains...


That unless you "play" CrystalDiskMark all day long, you're not actually testing anything of real-world substance beyond how CrystalDiskMark specficially can saturate multi GB/s loads in a way normal games / applications don't. (Hint: If you're looking at this software for the purpose of reducing game load times, have you tried testing some actual games)?...

Coming from a background of computer science education, 30 years of computing, hardware and software developing, this sounds like common sense.
I guess every 10 years or so the kids are rediscovering RAM caching/drives, as technology as old as the computers are.
I'm sad to see such a basic computer architectural concept is something that you need to proof and make people "believe it".
Some people are able to learn from others/history, some are doomed to repeat old mistakes.

 

[lexluthermiester]

64 GiB 128 GiB 16 GiB 32GiB

Um, what's with the "i" between the "G" and the "B"?

 

[80251]

Um, what's with the "i" between the "G" and the "B"?

A GB of data /= GiB. One is counted in base ten the other in base 2. I believe there are now official metric units called gibibyte, mibibyte, kibibyte etc.

 

[lexluthermiester]

A GB of data /= GiB. One is counted in base ten the other in base 2.

Yeah, most people ignore those distinctions in non-technical discussions and for good reason. Keep it simple.
Megabyte = MB
Megabit = Mb
Gigabyte = GB
Gigabit = Gb
And so on..

I believe there are now official metric units called gibibyte, mibibyte, kibibyte etc.

I don't care if they've made it official, I'm not moving away from the standard that has been in use for over 50years.

 

[80251]

The issue isn't bits vs. bytes (where 8-bits = a byte). The 8051 MCU could address 64 KB of RAM, but that wasn't 64000 bytes, it was 65536 bytes, so there's a definitive difference between 64 KB and 64 KiB.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The issue isn't bits vs. bytes (where 8-bits = a byte). The 8051 MCU could address 64 KB of RAM, but that wasn't 64000 bytes, it was 65536 bytes, so there's a definitive difference between 64 KB and 64 KiB.

But that is base computer math. No one who states 64K is thinking 64,000 bytes, they know it's 65,536(64x1024). It's still stated 64KB. People don't think base 10 when stating number in computer math. That is a moronic thing the Hard Drive manufactuing industry started back in the 1990's. No one cares about the "i", don't bother with it.

Regardless, let's get back on topic.

 

[Mussels]

Considering windows has its own HDD/SSD cache in memory what's the point of the primocache L1 cache (unless you have gobs of spare system memory)?

windows doesnt cache enough automatically, specifically it only caches things after you've ran them once already while primocache can cache things based on your past history from prior reboots
Clean OS install here so I havent reinstalled primocache yet, but after being on all day and playing various games windows has chosen to cache very little of it all (BL3 is ~120GB, for example)

With primocache i could fit the entirety of some of my games into RAM

A GB of data /= GiB. One is counted in base ten the other in base 2. I believe there are now official metric units called gibibyte, mibibyte, kibibyte etc.

This is something that varies by country, most english speaking counties do not use MiB. Should we? probably.
But we don't, because our softwares don't - it'd just add to confusion.

 

[OkieDan]

I've used it a couple years so I could use an old SATA 850 EVO as a cache drive for my HDDs. It works, but I now have enough SSD storage that I don't have any games on HDD anymore.

 

[LabRat 891]

Something that I don't believe had been mentioned...
IIRC, PrimoCache and AMD StoreMi both come from the same lineage. Sadly, it seems StoreMi is all but abandoned.
All 3 attempts to use StoreMi on my x570 (across 3 Windows installs) all failed. Only once was I able to get the software even installed (without it BSOD-looping).
PrimoCache, on the other hand was much easier to install and more stable.

 

[OkieDan]

If you do buy it a couple things to note is something like a virus scan can push files you had cached out of cache until accessed again. Similarly, having 7-zip calculate folder hash will put files in that folder into cache. If caching a HDD, using an SSD as L2 cache works well for performance boost, even SATA will give a huge bump in random reads. I'd recommend an SSD you don't care about having a lot of bytes written to if using L2 caching.

I found delayed write reliable, it won't let windows shutdown/reboot while it's flushing cache unless you do a forced shutdown. If you have occasional shutdowns due to power loss or unstable OC then I wouldn't enable delayed write.