OpenMediaVault server: Is it worth adding LVM cache?

[jimm_eh]

Based on advice gathered earlier on this forum, I built a server with 6 4TB WD reds in 4+2 RAID 6 under Open MediaVault, and it's working fine so far.  I have it set up with mdraid and LVM (and sync backup to external drive).

Does anyone have any experience with before/after adding SSD for an lvmcache in this sort of setup, and is it worth it?  This is an older motherboard with SATA only, no NVMe.  There's 2 SATA3 ports free on a SAS card and 2 more on the motherboard (the rest are SATA2).  Server use case is video editing and large VFX files.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id say probably not worth it. SSD caching norally don't have a. huge impact when eiditing as its built more for raming io than things like video playbac

 

What network Speeds are you working with? Whats the specs on the rest of the system?

 

If you want the best performance, id just put the ssd into the workstations, and edit off the ssd directly. 

[jimm_eh]

On 3/12/2021 at 8:56 AM, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id say probably not worth it. SSD caching norally don't have a. huge impact when eiditing as its built more for raming io than things like video playbac

 

What network Speeds are you working with? Whats the specs on the rest of the system?

 

If you want the best performance, id just put the ssd into the workstations, and edit off the ssd directly. 

The server is an i5 3570k with 16GB RAM and 6x 4TB Reds in RAID6, and two workstations involved, one a new Threadripper 3970X which handles 3D simulation data, and an older Haswell 5960X 8-core box which currently does the video editing.  All these are on 10Gbe.

Your idea of caching locally has occurred to me.  At least that way, the caches would be much faster NVMe on the new box.  The old one already has two 512gb SSD's in raid 0 for the local scratch drive.  Perhaps two licenses of Primocache would get me better overall results, especially since I'm the only user and won't likely be running more than 2 boxes at a time.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, jimm_eh said:

The server is an i5 3570k with 16GB RAM and 6x 4TB Reds in RAID6, and two workstations involved, one a new Threadripper 3970X which handles 3D simulation data, and an older Haswell 5960X 8-core box which currently does the video editing.  All these are on 10Gbe.

Your idea of caching locally has occurred to me.  At least that way, the caches would be much faster NVMe on the new box.  The old one already has two 512gb SSD's in raid 0 for the local scratch drive.  Perhaps two licenses of Primocache would get me better overall results, especially since I'm the only user and won't likely be running more than 2 boxes at a time.

 

I don't think primocache would help with network drives here. 

 

Is disk io performance a proplem with your current setup?

 

Id be tempted to just get like 8tb of ssds for current projects, and move them to the hdd aray when there completed.