Raid 0 on Gen5 or RAM disk on DDR5?

Avaviel · February 14

Systems I’ve tested this software on to lead me to these conclusions:

Older/work system 3070 with DDR3 system and SSD, some intel processor and a large amount of Ram.

Personal rig: 3080 upgraded to 4090 and Gen3 NVME with ryzen 7 and DDR4. (Full specs in my post history will edit this)

With my work, the software that I use will freeze up sometimes if I use it too quickly. It is in between. CAD and bill of materials type things, called Tekla Structures and the software isn’t very well optimized. It’s the sort of thing that’s been updated slowly, over 20 years, similar to AutoCAD.

I’ve been debating whether I should have the program save files in a RAM disk, or a RAID 0 SSD. When I am operating the program at high speeds, sometimes I will watch task manager. Nothing really spikes. For a while, I thought that meant that I was just imagining the lagging. But, I’m not. I can post links later, but look at my post history for YouTube links.

More and more I’m coming to the conclusion that it is the random reads and writes are causing my issues. These are all very tiny files being read. The graphics cards are all way overkill for what I’m doing. Processor too. And, even with DDR4 and GEN3 SSD, it goes slow. It is better than the older system, with some lag in more demanding situations.

1st question: can someone with DDR5 use crystal disk mark on a RAM disk? There are some free ones out there you can use. I’m curious about the smaller random read and write speeds.

2nd question: Have any of you used the paid software? Crashes don’t matter, nor do power outages. The items that I’m working with have automated backups that work impressively well. But I don’t want to have to manually copy files any time I restart my computer. (Though I guess a script would do the same as that)

sorry if I went into too much detail, I’ve used voice to text for part of this. And thanks for the help.

FlyingPotato_is_taken · February 14

RAID0 doesn't increase "IOPS" (low queue depth).

Neither are Gen5 SSDs or Intel Optane (e.g. Intel 900P) faster than DDR4 RAM-disks.

DDR5 depends but currently at most maybe a 2x in performance compared to high end DDR4.

Btw. If it's similar to Autocad: Try overclocking a single core as high as you can or get the fastest single threaded performance CPU you can get. Make sure the system is stable.

RONOTHAN## · February 14

37 minutes ago, Avaviel said:

1st question: can someone with DDR5 use crystal disk mark on a RAM disk? There are some free ones out there you can use. I’m curious about the smaller random read and write speeds.

This screenshot was on a 13700K with DDR5 7200 CL34-44-40-40 with custom sub-timings, so about as fast as you can hope for.

A lot of this will come down to specific software that you're using and what has the least amount of overhead. This was the first one I found (ImDisk), so take that for what you will. For reference, with the 2nd piece of software I found (SoftPerfect RAM Disk) performs significantly differently on the exact same setup:

Eigenvektor · February 14

59 minutes ago, Avaviel said:

Crashes don’t matter, nor do power outages. The items that I’m working with have automated backups that work impressively well.

And how often does the backup solution create a backup? Because whatever you're working on will be gone from a RAM disk if the computer restart.

Avaviel · February 14

16 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

This screenshot was on a 13700K with DDR5 7200 CL34-44-40-40 with custom sub-timings, so about as fast as you can hope for.

A lot of this will come down to specific software that you're using and what has the least amount of overhead. This was the first one I found (ImDisk), so take that for what you will. For reference, with the 2nd piece of software I found (SoftPerfect RAM Disk) performs significantly differently on the exact same setup:

Sweet! That answers many questions. Very yes to upgrade.

Top is my current Gen3 NVME and bottom is my ImDisk RAM disk on DDR4. (How did cute anime girl get there!?!? )

I think I'll try the trial of SoftPerfect, and if that goes well make the purchase. I'll be making a buy hardware post soon!

16 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

And how often does the backup solution create a backup? Because whatever you're working on will be gone from a RAM disk if the computer restart.

Tekla makes a 'core' backup every 10 changes to the model, and 1 per hour. That is backed up to Dropbox. Each time I take a break, I save the model, and make a backup that goes to Dropbox as well.

EDIT: I should add, I also have a battery backup.

Soon I'll have some sort of automated backup of those.

ImDisk has a cool sync with folder option, and it saves everything at shutdown (be sure to have fast boot OFF.) It also has a sync button. I'd like a 'sync ever X time' option though. Maybe there's a command line version, then I can automate it with a task.

This is awesome! I might finally have Tekla, which has been a pain in the ass to run when it's overloaded the way I load it, run fast! Which means I won't get distracted in the middle of working... look at my phone, and then look at facebook, and then a half hour has gone by without work being done.