Is this a good setup?

[NunoLava1998]

I was planning on getting a cheap 500GB or 1TB HDD and 4GB of additional RAM, then allocating those 4GB as cache using PrimoCache and getting very fast speeds for the fraction of the cost of an SSD (except it runs over most NVMe drives in speed, hell it even runs over Optane drives). The problem is, you need defer-write in order to reach those speeds, and with defer-write, if you use your HDD at all and reset or have a power outage, the data the HDD was working on will become corrupted. I was wondering however if you could do anything to mitigate this problem (i.e. getting two HDDs and RAID 5 ing them).

[Dedayog]

Isn't a cheap HDD and 4GB RAM (that your PC can'tuse for RAM stuff) almost as expensive as an SSD that you'll basically be getting the same real world performance?

 

I doubt you'll see NVMe speeds in actuality.

[Mira Yurizaki]

12 minutes ago, NunoLava1998 said:

I was planning on getting a cheap 500GB or 1TB HDD and 4GB of additional RAM, then allocating those 4GB as cache using PrimoCache and getting very fast speeds for the fraction of the cost of an SSD (except it runs over most NVMe drives in speed, hell it even runs over Optane drives). The problem is, you need defer-write in order to reach those speeds, and with defer-write, if you use your HDD at all and reset or have a power outage, the data the HDD was working on will become corrupted. I was wondering however if you could do anything to mitigate this problem (i.e. getting two HDDs and RAID 5 ing them).

Getting a UPS will mitigate power outage issues. Reseting likely doesn't cause data corruption because defer-write only affects the cache on the HDD. The HDD will likely continue on its last operation even in the event of a system reboot.

 

RAID 5 requires three drives at the minimum. Also it doesn't mitigate the problem since the problem is related to the drive's cache not flushing before powering off.

[NunoLava1998]

Just now, jstudrawa said:

Isn't a cheap HDD and 4GB RAM (that your PC can'tuse for RAM stuff) almost as expensive as an SSD that you'll basically be getting the same real world performance?

 

I doubt you'll see NVMe speeds in actuality.

I'll probably just dedicate 2GB RAM (same performance as 4GB) and not buy an extra RAM stick, in which it won't be as expensive, and I have left-over RAM.

 

Also, I legitimately doubted that I'd get NVMe speeds, and you have too, but holy fuck was I wrong! (This is my old 2008 HDD that's just laying around in my system doing nothing, with newer HDDs it should be even faster):

 

HDD+2GB RAM Cache

 

Sequential Q32: 7500MB/s Read, 6000MB/s Write

4K Q1: 450MB/s Read, 60MB/s Write

 

970 PRO:

 

Sequential Q32: 3500MB/s Read, 2500MB/s Write

4K Q1: 70MB/s Read, 250MB/s Write

 

Current SSD:

 

Sequential Q32: 450MB/s Read, 300MB/s Write

4K Q1: 40MB/s Read, 100MB/s Write

 

Much better than anything else except in 4KQ1Write, where it'll not really make much of a difference for my use xase

[NunoLava1998]

Just now, Mira Yurizaki said:

Getting a UPS will mitigate power outage issues. Reseting likely doesn't cause data corruption because defer-write only affects the cache on the HDD. The HDD will likely continue on its last operation even in the event of a system reboot.

 

RAID 5 requires three drives at the minimum. Also it doesn't mitigate the problem since the problem is related to the drive's cache not flushing before powering off.

Ah, okay. Power outages are extremely rare in my area (I reinstall Windows more often than I get power outages lol, and I rarely do that, power outages are every 18-36 months), so would just a regular power outage affect the HDD?

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, NunoLava1998 said:

I'll probably just dedicate 2GB RAM (same performance as 4GB) and not buy an extra RAM stick, in which it won't be as expensive, and I have left-over RAM.

 

Also, I legitimately doubted that I'd get NVMe speeds, and you have too, but holy fuck was I wrong! (This is my old 2008 HDD that's just laying around in my system doing nothing, with newer HDDs it should be even faster):

 

HDD+2GB RAM Cache

 

Sequential Q32: 7500MB/s Read, 6000MB/s Write

4K Q1: 450MB/s Read, 60MB/s Write

 

970 PRO:

 

Sequential Q32: 3500MB/s Read, 2500MB/s Write

4K Q1: 70MB/s Read, 250MB/s Write

 

Current SSD:

 

Sequential Q32: 450MB/s Read, 300MB/s Write

4K Q1: 40MB/s Read, 100MB/s Write

 

Much better than anything else except in 4KQ1Write, where it'll not really make much of a difference for my use xase

Bah, I can get that speed from my old 750 EV) in RAPID Mode.

 

But how does it perform in use?  Are you noticing that blistering speed at all?  Naw, neither do I.

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, NunoLava1998 said:

Ah, okay. Power outages are extremely rare in my area (I reinstall Windows more often than I get power outages lol, and I rarely do that, power outages are every 18-36 months), so would just a regular power outage affect the HDD?

Yes. In my years of using PCs and having random issues, I've yet to see data corruption on my storage drives despite having defer-write enabled. So it's likely isn't even an issue for most people.

[NunoLava1998]

Just now, jstudrawa said:

Bah, I can get that speed from my old 750 EV) in RAPID Mode.

 

But how does it perform in use?  Are you noticing that blistering speed at all?  Naw, neither do I.

 

 

RAPID Mode is the exact same thing, it uses RAM as cache.

Also, why not?

 

 

I got an ATTO benchmark, it runs over everything you can throw at it (QD4)

IO/s is like this for some reason:

Also, it should be about the same as an SSD because I literally did not hear any noise from this otherwise very noisy drive (hell, Windows sometimes just probes the drive randomly and I can hear it very clearly)

 

Defer-write is at 10s

[NunoLava1998]

Probably not going to do it because once the cache runs out the HDD resumes to normal HDD speeds which is quite annoying considering I probably need a fuckton of cache for it to not run out

[Dedayog]

Don't you have to pay for PrimoCache as well?  I guess I'm asking why not just get an SSD for the similar price and enjoy it without having to use an old HDD, RAM allocation and a pay service while worrying about power issues?

 

Tho it IS an interesting idea

[NunoLava1998]

1 minute ago, jstudrawa said:

Don't you have to pay for PrimoCache as well?  I guess I'm asking why not just get an SSD for the similar price and enjoy it without having to use an old HDD, RAM allocation and a pay service while worrying about power issues?

 

Tho it IS an interesting idea

It isn't a pay service thankfully, it's a one-time purchase of 29.99$ for 1pc

[Mira Yurizaki]

What're you trying to do here anyway?

[NunoLava1998]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

What're you trying to do here anyway?

get 8,000MB/s sequential and use it as a boot drive because i'm bored

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, NunoLava1998 said:

get 8,000MB/s sequential and use it as a boot drive because i'm bored

That's not going to happen with an HDD + RAM cache if a program has to set it up, because how's it going to set it up before an OS even starts?