F@H storage speed and size?

[asand1]

Will folding with a crappy old HDD or even running Linux from a thumb drive affect folding performance?

[Entropy.]

2 minutes ago, asand1 said:

Will folding with a crappy old HDD or even running Linux from a thumb drive affect folding performance?

(I'm not sure of my answer so I deleted the past comment)

[j1philli]

3 hours ago, asand1 said:

Will folding with a crappy old HDD or even running Linux from a thumb drive affect folding performance?

I run Unraid from an external USB port and have F@H and BOINC as dockers and I get the appropriate points for my hardware in this configuration so I would assume the USB would be fine as long as it is USB 2 or better. So in that regard it would not affect performance. Now I do have all of the data being downloaded and uploaded from an SSD array in Unraid. So my thoughts are that if you are also downloading and uploading from that same USB you are booted from you may run into transfer bottlenecks. This will affect your Points Per Day(PPD) by extending your download and upload times by not submitting your Work Units(WU) efficiently after they are completed. Any other questions feel free to ask. Happy Folding!

 

[TVwazhere]

18 hours ago, asand1 said:

Will folding with a crappy old HDD or even running Linux from a thumb drive affect folding performance?

I have run F@H on a Windows 7 HDD, and a Windows 10 SSD. A negligible difference on a 970 and a 750ti. More powerful cards are more likely to be sensitive to things like OS, but in the end your choice of storage should not affect your overall PPD in a meaningful way. 

[Gorgon]

F@H is a good use for those un-loved 2.5" 120GB SSDs that were once the cat's meow but in a pinch I wouldn't hesitate to use spinning rust. The work is kept in RAM and only checkpoints and the final results are written to disk so little to no impact.