Question Is PrimoCache worth it?

[kepstin]

PrimoCache makes a lot of sense for steam library on HDD. I do that on a few of my computers.

With a 1TB SSD + 6TB HDD, I'd recommend splitting the SSD into two partitions (split somewhere between 500/500 and 800/200). Install Windows to the first SSD partition, and have PrimoCache use the second partition as cache space to accelerate the HDD.

Having the OS directly on the SSD makes it a bit faster, and removes some possible failures that can cause your OS not to boot (pretty rare with PrimoCache, but still possible). It also means you can manually install some apps/games directly to the SSD if desired.

With only the steam library being cached by PrimoCache, you can consider enabling delayed write caching to speed up game updates. That's kind of dangerous on an OS drive (power cuts can corrupt the whole system - I've had this happen personally!) but not a big deal for games that you can re-download or repair.

 

[Charlie22911]

PrimoCache makes a lot of sense for steam library on HDD. I do that on a few of my computers.

With a 1TB SSD + 6TB HDD, I'd recommend splitting the SSD into two partitions (split somewhere between 500/500 and 800/200). Install Windows to the first SSD partition, and have PrimoCache use the second partition as cache space to accelerate the HDD.

Having the OS directly on the SSD makes it a bit faster, and removes some possible failures that can cause your OS not to boot (pretty rare with PrimoCache, but still possible). It also means you can manually install some apps/games directly to the SSD if desired.

With only the steam library being cached by PrimoCache, you can consider enabling write caching to speed up game updates. That's kind of dangerous on an OS drive (power cuts can corrupt the whole system - I've had this happen personally!) but not a big deal for games that you can re-download or repair.

Great feedback, thank you! I hadn’t even considered the write cache. Have you seen a benefit to also enabling the L1 caching? I have 64GB ram, so I have plenty to spare for caching if it provides meaningful improvement.

 

[kepstin]

Great feedback, thank you! I hadn’t even considered the write cache. Have you seen a benefit to also enabling the L1 caching? I have 64GB ram, so I have plenty to spare for caching if it provides meaningful improvement.

I don't personally use the RAM caching. It seems like it would be redudant/conflict with the disk caching that the OS already does? (it sure makes CrystalDiskMark numbers big tho!). But it can be enabled/disabled in PrimoCache fairly easily, so feel free to try it out - and share whether it makes a difference for you.

 

[msroadkill612]

PrimoCache makes a lot of sense for steam library on HDD. I do that on a few of my computers.

With a 1TB SSD + 6TB HDD, I'd recommend splitting the SSD into two partitions (split somewhere between 500/500 and 800/200). Install Windows to the first SSD partition, and have PrimoCache use the second partition as cache space to accelerate the HDD.

Having the OS directly on the SSD makes it a bit faster, and removes some possible failures that can cause your OS not to boot (pretty rare with PrimoCache, but still possible). It also means you can manually install some apps/games directly to the SSD if desired.

With only the steam library being cached by PrimoCache, you can consider enabling delayed write caching to speed up game updates. That's kind of dangerous on an OS drive (power cuts can corrupt the whole system - I've had this happen personally!) but not a big deal for games that you can re-download or repair.

... or be a bit braver, & ssd primocache a raid 0 hdd array, for a large partition from smaller HDDs, & near SATA SSD speeds

 

[msroadkill612]

PrimoCache makes a lot of sense for steam library on HDD. I do that on a few of my computers.

With a 1TB SSD + 6TB HDD, I'd recommend splitting the SSD into two partitions (split somewhere between 500/500 and 800/200). Install Windows to the first SSD partition, and have PrimoCache use the second partition as cache space to accelerate the HDD.

Having the OS directly on the SSD makes it a bit faster, and removes some possible failures that can cause your OS not to boot (pretty rare with PrimoCache, but still possible). It also means you can manually install some apps/games directly to the SSD if desired.

With only the steam library being cached by PrimoCache, you can consider enabling delayed write caching to speed up game updates. That's kind of dangerous on an OS drive (power cuts can corrupt the whole system - I've had this happen personally!) but not a big deal for games that you can re-download or repair.

am not a gamer, but i cant see there being much writing to a steam drive except initially?

u can also nominate the same ssd as cache or another ssd as a delayed write buffer w/ primocache.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Wow. This thread goes back to 2017.

A lot of members probably associate me with the software as an avid user.

In another thread, I posted a linked PDF white-paper that Romex had published concerning the use of PrimoCache with Optane. It works fine. The benefits may seem marginal, and a matter of convenience.

Today, of course, you can find the right motherboard, chipset and processor to use with a Sammy Pro 980 -- supposedly to avail of those high benchmark sequential reads of 7,000 MB/s. At that point, you could say you have no need for PrimoCache. Or, weighing "need" versus "want", there's not much need.

However, if you have a mix of storage devices or find it convenient to include SATA SSDs and HDDs, you might then want Primo-Cache to speed up those bottlenecks in conjunct with your 980 Pros/EVOs and your RAM.

I'm not in that much of a hurry to update my systems from my Z170 chips and quad-core Skylake/Kabys. Like my car, I like getting some mileage out of the hardware. I don't like so much the prospect of rebuilding software configurations or moving data, although there are ways to make that easier. And I like to do a lot of tweaking and testing before a new system becomes "fully operational".

So PrimoCache is something I use on all my PCs, old and new, in whatever ways the hardware allows.

That being said, the license for a single PC is a lifetime offering that only costs about $30 or so. These days, that's only two Mexican dinners.

Does it create problems? I can say what those might be, but for the price and at minimum, it "does no harm".

The only troubles I've ever encountered related to big-time feature upgrade/updates to Windows 10. I never lost data, never corrupted a disk, and the problem with the feature update was quickly rectified.

There are very few circumstances where you might want to flush the caches. But it doesn't take that long to refill them. You just have to use your computer.

Somebody mentioned in a recent post their reticence about using RAM-caching, particularly in tandem with L2 or SSD caching. Unless you're using very old hardware, it no longer makes sense to use an SATA SSD as a caching drive. You'd do better choosing an NVME of whatever size you want for a cache drive. I use 256GB units for that.

I use RAM-caching and L2/"SSD" caching together in a two-tiered configuration. I have no problem with it. It makes having at least 32GB of RAM more feasible or useable. IF you have entirely stable RAM and a UPS backup for power, you can perhaps take the risk of enabling delayed writes to show higher sequential and random write scores. Maybe it improves performance, maybe it doesn't, but I've never had problems with it.

If you use L1 or RAM-caching, just be sure your memory is 100% rock-solid stable and error free. Not really a lot of trouble to assure something like that.

If you have a lot of SATA SSDs and HDD spinners, you can cache them all to an NVME drive and then to RAM. But the type of data contained on such drives determines whether it's really practical to cache them. I have two 2.5" HDDs -- one for media, mostly music and video; the other for my Macrium backups. Neither one of those needs to be cached, because it shouldn't require higher than HDD speed to access and stream the files. If it does, then make a cache for them.

ADDENDUM -- I see part of this conversation about PrimoCache includes posts I made on a thread about NVME and M.2 -- also very current. So for both threads, here is one more advisory about PrimoCache.

If you are using a program like Macrium Reflect to backup all of your persistent storage -- NVME, SATA SSD and HDD -- a program like Macrium will throw up a message that it is about to start a scheduled backup. I have mine scheduled for every morning at 9AM, excluding Saturday and Sunday. You should have time to bring up PrimoCache and "Pause" all the caches, one after another. Basically, I have only two cache tasks, and this is pretty easy.

The reason you might wish to do this is straightforward. If you are going to back up storage media that is cached, and especially for a full backup or differential backup, you're going to read a lot of data from the source disks, and it's going to fill your caches, pushing out the data you want in there for programs and files you access frequently. So you pause the caches to keep that from happening.

 

[0ldman79]

So I’m seriously considering pulling the trigger on the primocache software, and I’m curious to know if anyone here is using it for their steam library?
I have a large library (close to 5TB), and it’s not economical to purchase a SSD large enough to fit that much. And with SSDs relegating HDDs nearly exclusively to slow bulk storage, I’m thinking about pairing a 6TB WD black I have on hand with a 1TB 970pro I also have on hand. I’ve been getting by, swapping games off to my NAS until I’m ready to play, but that’s a hugeee pain.
Thoughts?

I've got an 80GB Intel SSD that is caching my 2TB 7200 RPM game drive, Windows is on a 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND.

With tons of mods Fallout 4 would snag if I ran through the level while reading. Primocache fixed that 99%. Moving it to an SSD corrected it entirely.

Gran Theft Auto V, Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry 5 and New Dawn, no difference at all between loading from the SSD vs loading from the HD with Primocache.

Also having at least a 1GB buffer on my C: drive got around the Fallout 4 "crash when saving" bug most of the time, in saving to C: it actually saved to the 1GB RAM buffer as far as the game was concerned and there was no "bump", much less a crash. With all my mods it still crashes occasionally but that helped quite a bit.

It also helps dramatically with small writes and read speeds. Windows, games, etc, will randomly write while you're loading which tanks your read speeds from 175MB/s to nothing then back to 175MB/s. The write cache prevents reads from being interrupted, especially if you use deferred writes.

It will also speed up defrag on HD if you set it right, it can read how ever much you set the cache to be before it stops to write. Hard drives aren't that slow at sequential reads or writes, as fast as the older SSDs, if you can prevent the reads and writes from being interrupted and scattered (multiple reads/writes at the same time) then you can keep the speeds up, massively improving performance.

 

[0ldman79]

I actually plan to store the DB on an NVME SSD drive, so I'm wondering if L1 (Ram) cache could improve performance beyond NVME.

After playing with it a bit more, yeah, it would help..

If you have enough L1 or L2 to fully cache your DB you'll see much better performance. If not, it won't do a lot but buffer writes so they don't interfere with your read speeds.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

For $30, you experience better performance, and you can wait longer before changing up your hardware. But even then -- what happens when you cache a 980 Pro/EVO with a PCIE v.4.0 motherboard?

I've thought about doubling my 2x16GB RAM. I don't think I need to do it. It might not even make a practical difference.

 

[0ldman79]

PrimoCache makes a lot of sense for steam library on HDD. I do that on a few of my computers.

With a 1TB SSD + 6TB HDD, I'd recommend splitting the SSD into two partitions (split somewhere between 500/500 and 800/200). Install Windows to the first SSD partition, and have PrimoCache use the second partition as cache space to accelerate the HDD.

The only issue I have with this is Primocache does cause an excessive amount of wear on the SSD regardless of the type.
I wouldn't want to risk my OS SSD for that. A $25 128GB or $35 256GB SSD dedicated would be preferred. I'm looking at some OEM Hynix and Samsung NVME drives on ebay, office purchases where they pulled the NVME and replaced it with a larger one right out of the box.

It won't quite be like adding 128GB of RAM but it'll definitely be better than 32GB of RAM.

One issue I noticed on my other machine, the older SSDs don't TRIM automatically so if you're buffering with an older SSD you'll need a tiny partition on it you can read in Windows to trigger TRIM every now and then otherwise your write speeds suffer.

 

[aigomorla]

Wow. This thread goes back to 2017.

A lot of members probably associate me with the software as an avid user.

lol... i called for you a long time ago, i think you were on hiatus.
But now i still see no point in using this, as even AMD has StoreMi which is primocache in sense.

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/store-mi

So Again... intel had Optane AMD had StoreMi.

PrimoCache makes a lot of sense for steam library on HDD. I do that on a few of my computers.

no it doesn't... you want read speed for loading... primocache is cache, meaning it still needs to load off that spinner...
Here is a video of it what i mean about it still needing to pull data off that spinner on first load.

Its on the simular ground of a Hybrid drive which not many exist now, like how the Seagate's firecuda before they went to SSD's would be hybrid drives.
It improves as its already loaded, but initially the data still needs to be read off the spinner.

Primocache will not help in gaming unless its moving back and forwards on maps where the map is cached, or you like to close the game and reopen it constantly, so its not pulling data off the spinner.

 

[0ldman79]

Its on the simular ground of a Hybrid drive which not many exist now, like how the Seagate's firecuda before they went to SSD's would be hybrid drives.
It improves as its already loaded, but initially the data still needs to be read off the spinner.

Primocache will not help in gaming unless its moving back and forwards on maps where the map is cached, or you like to close the game and reopen it constantly, so its not pulling data off the spinner.

You're still showing a fundamental lack of understanding of how this works.

Download it, run a spare SSD as an L2 cache and find out yourself. 30 day trial.

The first time it loads it is at HD speeds, admitted.

The second time it loads it is coming from a FULL SSD, not a half-assed single channel NAND on a hard drive, it is nothing like a hybrid hard drive. It remains in that SSD cache until you overwrite it with other data or the system crashes.

Typically you play a game for a while then move on to the next, right now I'm alternating between Fallout 4 and Cyberpunk 2077, both fit in my 80GB cache, both load at 200MB/s (old Intel SSD) and there is no time lost due to hard drive seeking data, especially helps with caching writes so they don't interfere with reads.

You're being intentionally dense about this.

Download the trial and grab any old SSD, even first gen 175MB/s SSD.

 

[aigomorla]

The first time it loads it is at HD speeds, admitted.

The second time it loads it is coming from a FULL SSD, not a half-assed single channel NAND on a hard drive, it is nothing like a hybrid hard drive. It remains in that SSD cache until you overwrite it with other data or the system crashes.

Typically you play a game for a while then move on to the next, right now I'm alternating between Fallout 4 and Cyberpunk 2077, both fit in my 80GB cache, both load at 200MB/s (old Intel SSD) and there is no time lost due to hard drive seeking data, especially helps with caching writes so they don't interfere with reads.

You're being intentionally dense about this.

Ok i admit i am being a bit "elitist" in hardware, as i take gaming PC configs a bit personally.

Ok i can see it having some point, but i guess its down to how you ultimately build the system.

However i still would not go this route as there are better routes down to using 2 x 120gb SSD's in Raid 0 to play the current games on list which is faster then a single SSD in loads from a fresh boot even.

I personally do not recommend gaming on a HDD unless its something where load times are not bad. But again if budget is constraint, there is nothing one can do about it, so i will appologize for my elitist attitude.

However games are slowly needing that fast I/O.
Sony even wants to move away from conventional loads to nVME's, which i believe the consoles are headed too, as gen4 1/5th the speed of DDR4 RAM even.


Have you tried an Optane or an nVME to see if you can increase that load of 200MB/s?

 

[0ldman79]

I've got multiple SSD's, WD blue in testing @ 550MB/s, not a dramatic improvement over the old Intel SSD as the majority of my wait time is decompression (1 second data burst then 25 seconds decompressing vs 2 second data burst and 25 seconds decompressing), even when loading directly from the mechanical hard drive, that's why I still have a hard drive. I've got 1.5TB of games installed, 12GB of DDR4 as a L1 cache and 80GB SSD as an L2.

When I'm gaming the initial load comes from the L2 SSD (200MB/s) and while I'm playing the 12GB cache is running at DDR4 3200 speeds. At worst case my mechanical drive is 150MB/s, peak is nearly 200MB/s, just gotta keep it from fragmenting and keep the drive seeks to a minimum. The L1 can be adjusted on the fly so when I'm doing drive heavy work (some of my video work) it's at 12-20GB, when I'm using memory heavy apps it's set to 512MB to 1GB.

Actually looking at a $25 128GB SSD and a pair of 2TB hard drives soon, ~$125 and I'll have 4TB of storage that will load whatever game I'm playing at ~2GB/s.

I would rather have purely NVME drives, agreed, but it's also pretty damn cool using different tech to get the same results, especially when getting the same performance as a $400+ 4TB SSD while only spending $125. I've just got too much crap to keep the system pure NAND.

It's not just what you buy it's how you use it. I'm that way with everything, I'd rather catch you off guard with oddball stuff than go with the crowd.

There's no need to run the SSD's in RAID, it's just a cheap boost but even without an SSD simply using it to defer writes helps. Deferred writes can keep a random small write from killing your read speed and as such destroying your load times.

I don't recommend it to everyone, a light gamer that plays one game, uninstalls it and moves on would be wasting money. Someone like me with a 25+ year library of games, nearly half of them installed, yeah, it comes in handy.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I've got multiple SSD's, WD blue in testing @ 550MB/s, not a dramatic improvement over the old Intel SSD as the majority of my wait time is decompression (1 second data burst then 25 seconds decompressing vs 2 second data burst and 25 seconds decompressing), even when loading directly from the mechanical hard drive, that's why I still have a hard drive. I've got 1.5TB of games installed, 12GB of DDR4 as a L1 cache and 80GB SSD as an L2.

When I'm gaming the initial load comes from the L2 SSD (200MB/s) and while I'm playing the 12GB cache is running at DDR4 3200 speeds. At worst case my mechanical drive is 150MB/s, peak is nearly 200MB/s, just gotta keep it from fragmenting and keep the drive seeks to a minimum. The L1 can be adjusted on the fly so when I'm doing drive heavy work (some of my video work) it's at 12-20GB, when I'm using memory heavy apps it's set to 512MB to 1GB.

Actually looking at a $25 128GB SSD and a pair of 2TB hard drives soon, ~$125 and I'll have 4TB of storage that will load whatever game I'm playing at ~2GB/s.

I would rather have purely NVME drives, agreed, but it's also pretty damn cool using different tech to get the same results, especially when getting the same performance as a $400+ 4TB SSD while only spending $125. I've just got too much crap to keep the system pure NAND.

It's not just what you buy it's how you use it. I'm that way with everything, I'd rather catch you off guard with oddball stuff than go with the crowd.

There's no need to run the SSD's in RAID, it's just a cheap boost but even without an SSD simply using it to defer writes helps. Deferred writes can keep a random small write from killing your read speed and as such destroying your load times.

I don't recommend it to everyone, a light gamer that plays one game, uninstalls it and moves on would be wasting money. Someone like me with a 25+ year library of games, nearly half of them installed, yeah, it comes in handy.

When I became aware of the NVMEs in late 2016, I was also building my Skylake system, and I'd been using PrimoCache for three years on older systems. I saw the prospects immediately.

I'm building another system of spare parts this year, with case and storage strategy similar to the 2016/17 system. I still plan to have two spinners: one for video and audio media, the other for daily Macrium backup. They're both 5,200 RPM disks. Of course, I'm not caching them.

On the older system, I was caching a large SATA SSD to a 250GB 960 EVO. I don't think I'll be using an L2 cache in the new system. But some portion of my 32GB RAM? Surely!

 

[0ldman79]

It can always be faster.

I just upgraded from an Ivy Bridge to a Ryzen 3700x (basically a 3770 to a 3700x) and it's definitely faster in caching than my old system or my Skylake laptop. Even the SATA SSD is faster, system just has more power to throw at every problem.

If you don't have any apps on the spinners I see your point. I do a ton of encoding work, smaller files just fit in the L1, record, edit and save all in the L1 if I play my cards right.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It can always be faster.

I just upgraded from an Ivy Bridge to a Ryzen 3700x (basically a 3770 to a 3700x) and it's definitely faster in caching than my old system or my Skylake laptop. Even the SATA SSD is faster, system just has more power to throw at every problem.

If you don't have any apps on the spinners I see your point. I do a ton of encoding work, smaller files just fit in the L1, record, edit and save all in the L1 if I play my cards right.

That's the distinction. "Encoding" versus merely Playback. IF I need to do encoding, I'll just add another cache task! 😛

I swear -- with this little PrimoCache program, you begin to imagine how you could load up your system with all types of HDDs and SSDs and cache piles of them. I'm STILL contemplating the pros and cons of adding another 2x16GB RAM kit. Some PrimoCache user over at the Romex forums had 128GB of RAM -- essential for his "caching requirements".

Enthusiast-spendthrifts like me try and rein in their hardware addictions, but . . . . curiosity killed the cat, didn't it?

There IS another positive angle to this. HDD spinners have a relatively short MTBF compared to SATA and NVME SSDs. If PrimoCache offers benefit to accessing the spinners, they may not work nearly as hard as if they were uncached.

I've got a Win 2012 R2 server upstairs in an unoccupied room. It has 4 3TB HDDs and 16GB of RAM, with a 250GB SATA SSD for the OS and another one for L2 caching. There's a 4GB dedicated backup drive, supplementing the StableBit Drive-Pool duplication for important files. I actually bought the PrimoCache Server license for it.

And . . . it's fast enough . . .

 

[Jimminy]

I wonder why folks like microsoft didn't add caching to their operating system? It would have made a lot of sense back when ssds first started appearing.

Nowadays, if rich enough, you can just splurge on the fastest nvmes for everything and be done with it.

 

[0ldman79]

That's the distinction. "Encoding" versus merely Playback. IF I need to do encoding, I'll just add another cache task! 😛

I swear -- with this little PrimoCache program, you begin to imagine how you could load up your system with all types of HDDs and SSDs and cache piles of them. I'm STILL contemplating the pros and cons of adding another 2x16GB RAM kit. Some PrimoCache user over at the Romex forums had 128GB of RAM -- essential for his "caching requirements".

Enthusiast-spendthrifts like me try and rein in their hardware addictions, but . . . . curiosity killed the cat, didn't it?

It's pretty awesome playing with it, the entire video is in the L1 cache, old games like Jedi Knight Academy, Unreal Tournament, etc, fit in the L1, just open the app and fiddle with it for the sheer hell of it.

The caching consolidates writes on HD and SSD, extending the lifespan of both.
Have you found a sector size that fits best? I bumped mine to 64K then a fresh install of Windows and Primocache 3.0.2 had the default size as 128K, pretty large considering...

 

[Jimminy]

I found a caching software from intel. Had to jump through lots of hoops to download it.

IntelCacheAccelerationSoftware_x64-3.2.2.64.exe
(only about 14 MB file)

It's for windows, but I think they also have linux versions too. You get free, genuine, official intel "support" for optane drives, but it's also supposed to be functional for other nvme drives.

I haven't installed it yet. Heck, I don't even know if I really need caching, but I wondered if you guys had tried this and may know about any gottchas.

I'm guessing it's not as good as the primo stuff since it's just a free program (except for the necessary hoop jumping efforts).

 

[BonzaiDuck]

1st, on all my Intel processors and across storage systems when I've added another SATA controller to the motherboard's default, it has never done any harm. 2nd, it does some good, because the entire system seems faster, given the apparent throughput in the "lower storage" pyramid of speed versus volume features.

Are there cases where you have to diddle with it, or where you might be advised to do so? Sure -- with hardware additions and upgrades to the storage subsystem. Epic feature upgrades to Windows 10 can force you to recreate caches. You'll regain speed in writing and retrieving data from storage, just for following your usual behavior when using your computer.

I wouldn't know about new caching software from Intel. There was -- not long ago -- a proprietary caching "acceleration" program or "Intel Smart Response Technology -- ISRT. ISRT is itself a feature of IRST -- Intel Rapid Storage Technology, for which the driver bundle gives you an app for configuration, settings and drive status. But you have to have Intel hardware and firmware to utilize ISRT. It's not agnostic across all types of storage, as is PrimoCAche. The same thoughts apply to Samsung RAPID, also a proprietary caching feature, only available on Samsung drives.

You can actually run PrimoCache, RAPID and ISRT together. I'd even bet you could add Marvel's proprietary caching for controller chipsets -- Hyper Duo (IIRC). But you can't configure the same drives with more than one program or system. I can't remember if PrimoCache recognizes or reports drives which should be unavailable. The proprietary systems, wedded to hardware/firmware, don't recognize anything but that hardware.

 

[0ldman79]

PrimoCAche. The same thoughts apply to Samsung RAPID, also a proprietary caching feature, only available on Samsung drives.

You can actually run PrimoCache, RAPID and ISRT together. I'd even bet you could add Marvel's proprietary caching for controller chipsets -- Hyper Duo (IIRC). But you can't configure the same drives with more than one program or system. I can't remember if PrimoCache recognizes or reports drives which should be unavailable. The proprietary systems, wedded to hardware/firmware, don't recognize anything but that hardware.

The only thing to add, Samsung Magician is strictly L1 cache, performance is virtually identical to Primocache with a 1GB or 2GB L1.

I had Magician running on my 850 Pro and Primocache on my other drives, eventually just ran Primocache as I could use multiple caches or just one big cache with the same overhead, less overhead than running Magician.

Doubling up does work but there's no benefit for it at all.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The only thing to add, Samsung Magician is strictly L1 cache, performance is virtually identical to Primocache with a 1GB or 2GB L1.

I had Magician running on my 850 Pro and Primocache on my other drives, eventually just ran Primocache as I could use multiple caches or just one big cache with the same overhead, less overhead than running Magician.

Doubling up does work but there's no benefit for it at all.

Sure -- your conclusion was mine as well.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

Man, I can't believe this thread is still around; I don't even have that SSD anymore. My bulk storage for pretty much everything back then was on nearline enterprise HDDs. Nowadays, I have a 16TB HDD (before the madness!) that is used only for media files and documents. Everything else is on NAND. The HDD is attached to a LSI 9211 SAS HBA which performs much better than the X570 SATA and interestingly caches writes; even without any onboard RAM whilst in IT mode. So, this software has less use for me and probably most these days.

 

[aigomorla]

LSI 9211 SAS HBA which performs much better than the X570

Doesn't this default your board primary gpu slot to 8x then and not 16x?

I assume thats the only way your going to get enough pci-e lanes with the addition of a nvme.