Solved Hey hardware guys. Need advice on m.2 drive

johnlgalt · Oct 3, 2023

When running Gentoo Linux on my eVGA X58 board, I used to make a 4 GB RAM drive and move the \tmp partition (I think it was) to the RAM drive, which massively sped up the compilation of apps (since Gentoo can be built as a LFS from start to finish, which is how I did it). That machine had 12 GB of RAM.

My current rig has 128 GB RAM - I could probably benefit from one, even as large as 32 GB, without any real ill effect, but subjectively, right now not much feels slow, so I'm not sure of any real subjective benefit.

If games didn't take up so much space, though, I'd try doing it with a game - that would be wild, loading files from RAM to RAM instead from drive to RAM lol.

Flashorn · Oct 3, 2023

johnlgalt said:
If games didn't take up so much space

I know right! My last installation of Sniper Elite 5 is 150 Gigs and that's not counting the DLCs.
Older games that only require 6 or 7 Gigs would be awesome to try out although, with these new
nvmes, it might not matter that much.
I'll try an 8 gig RAMdisk and see if it will still matter today.

johnlgalt · Oct 3, 2023

Yeah, but a lot of factors involved, and RAM disks are volatile, so you have to create on boot, and then copy stuff to the RAMDisk, if the system ever gets restarted (which, thanks to Microsoft and its patches, out of band updates, and 3rd party software updates, it way more often than I'd like).

That's probably the biggest reason I've not tried it out again, even having a system that can make great use of one.

Still, though, would love to see if you see a significant improvement there or not.

Flashorn · Oct 4, 2023

johnlgalt said:
RAM disks are volatile

From what I've been able to understand is that you can specify a path to load the image saved by ramdisk
to another say disk on the PC. This might be where a ramdisk benefits from a saved image on an nvme.
Don't know till I try and I will try it. Although, the Solidigm P41 maybe slow to improve the speed of copying
the image back to the ramdisk. I'll tell you when I get it done.

johnlgalt · Oct 4, 2023

Yeah, but it is that exact copy from disk to RAMDisk that will take some time. Also, from my perspective, if I were to create a 25% RAMDisk (so 32 GB), that's a lot of copying every time the system boots, or manually if I only do it before playing a game lol.

Still copying from a local NVMe drive to RAM directly should not take all that long, I should get close to GB/s speeds. So maybe I'm over thinking it.

Flashorn · Oct 4, 2023

johnlgalt said:
Yeah, but it is that exact copy from disk to RAMDisk that will take some time. Also, from my perspective, if I were to create a 25% RAMDisk (so 32 GB), that's a lot of copying every time the system boots, or manually if I only do it before playing a game lol.

Still copying from a local NVMe drive to RAM directly should not take all that long, I should get close to GB/s speeds. So maybe I'm over thinking it.

I already have a ramdisc on my windows 7 and when I used to load it (haven't used it in some time now) it used to write almost
as I clicked on it. The image was saved to the boot drive which is a Intel 520 SATA from 2012 so, I just want to see if any improvement
and if so, by how much.
The notebook I'm talking about is the Eurocom Scorpius P370EM with Radeon 8970m in Crossfire. Eurocom's labs are just down the road from
where I live and worked so, I was curious as to what they offered. Went in and came out with a custom built notebook and I won't tell
you the price because I still can't believe I paid that much for a notebook. BUT, it is still a very good machine to this day.

eurocom scorpius review - Google Search

PerpetualCycle · Oct 4, 2023

johnlgalt said:
Yeah, but it is that exact copy from disk to RAMDisk that will take some time. Also, from my perspective, if I were to create a 25% RAMDisk (so 32 GB), that's a lot of copying every time the system boots, or manually if I only do it before playing a game lol.

Still copying from a local NVMe drive to RAM directly should not take all that long, I should get close to GB/s speeds. So maybe I'm over thinking it.

Primocache is a disk block Level ram cache. You can configure it to save the cache across reboots. It lazily populates the cache on a reboot. It works very well.

Flashorn · Oct 4, 2023

geneo said:
Primocache is a disk block Level ram cache. You can configure it to save the cache across reboots. It lazily populates the cache on a reboot. It works very well.

I see they also have a ramdisk. Have you tried both and if so, which is better?
I've only used AMD's so, I don't know how others will work.
I think we have taken over Glasskuter's thread.

I still want to know how she is doing with the new drive. Anyone know?

johnlgalt · Oct 4, 2023

geneo said:
Primocache is a disk block Level ram cache. You can configure it to save the cache across reboots. It lazily populates the cache on a reboot. It works very well.

I only have NVMe SSDs in my system. 3x on board using NVMe and 3x in external enclosures connected via USB Type-C. Write caching is not what I'm looking for, I don't believe, as the game will be doing predominantly one way reading of files as necessary into memory.

Unless I'm missing something?

Flashorn said:
see they also have a ramdisk.

I see that as well, now. I might jump on this as well, would definitely allow for some interesting results.

Had another thought - could also use a RAMDisk for mapping Windows' \Temp folder, making for all sorts of sped up computer usage. Again, though, I suspect that unless it is a large file / large number of files operation, I probably would only see negligible performance increases over my NVMe drives.

Only way to know for sure would be to try it, though.

Scannerman · Oct 4, 2023

johnlgalt said:
I only have NVMe SSDs in my system. 3x on board using NVMe and 3x in external enclosures connected via USB Type-C. Write caching is not what I'm looking for, I don't believe, as the game will be doing predominantly one way reading of files as necessary into memory.

Unless I'm missing something?

I see that as well, now. I might jump on this as well, would definitely allow for some interesting results.

Had another thought - could also use a RAMDisk for mapping Windows' \Temp folder, making for all sorts of sped up computer usage. Again, though, I suspect that unless it is a large file / large number of files operation, I probably would only see negligible performance increases over my NVMe drives.

Only way to know for sure would be to try it, though.

Keep us posted

Flashorn · Oct 4, 2023

johnlgalt said:
I see that as well, now. I might jump on this as well, would definitely allow for some interesting results.

OK so, I will not hijack Glasskuter's thread any further. I will be starting a new one as I've just bought
the rights to a 12 gig AMD RAMdisk.
See you all on the new thread latter today I hope.
Sorry Glasskuter but, I would like to know how you're getting along with your new project.

glasskuter · Oct 7, 2023

An update for anyone who is interested. I received my Solidigm m.2 today. I didn't initialize or format it. I let Macrium do all that when I restored an image as well as resizing my C partition. It just worked.
Below are 2 screenshots of Crystal Disk Mark results.
The first one is my old tiny SKHynix. The second is the Solidigm. Even on my gen 3 board I see improvement over the old m.2 which I wasn't expecting. I'm very pleased with how easy it was to get working. I haven't tested what the temps will be under load yet but right now it's staying steady at 43 degrees. It's in a double sided heatsink with thermal pads on both side.

I am slightly worried about stress on the m.2 connector using that heatsink though. It;s hard to explain. When I plug it into the slot at a slight angle it slides into the connector just fine, but when I go to screw it in, I have to put pressure on the screw end to get it flush against the surface of the motherboard which in turn seems to cause reverse tension on the connector end. I think it's because of the extra thickness added by the bottom thermal pad and/or the bottom of the heatsink. I'm thinking I need to remove the bottom thermal pad.
I don't want the connector popping off the mobo.

Scannerman · Oct 7, 2023

glasskuter said:
An update for anyone who is interested. I received my Solidigm m.2 today. I didn't initialize or format it. I let Macrium do all that when I restored an image as well as resizing my C partition. It just worked.
Below are 2 screenshots of Crystal Disk Mark results.
The first one is my old tiny SKHynix. The second is the Solidigm. Even on my gen 3 board I see improvement over the old m.2 which I wasn't expecting. I'm very pleased with how easy it was to get working. I haven't tested what the temps will be under load yet but right now it's staying steady at 43 degrees. It's in a double sided heatsink with thermal pads on both side.

I am slightly worried about stress on the m.2 connector using that heatsink though. It;s hard to explain. When I plug it into the slot at a slight angle it slides into the connector just fine, but when I go to screw it in, I have to put pressure on the screw end to get it flush against the surface of the motherboard which in turn seems to cause reverse tension on the connector end. I think it's because of the extra thickness added by the bottom thermal pad and/or the bottom of the heatsink. I'm thinking I need to remove the bottom thermal pad.
I don't want the connector popping off the mobo.

I was wondering if you were going to go with that. Good choice! And thank you so much for sharing.

The plate that goes over top the entire stick of NVMe should be enough to hold everything together. Don't worry. Be happy! :)

glasskuter · Oct 7, 2023

Scannerman said:
The plate that goes over top the entire stick of NVMe should be enough to hold everything togethe

The way that heatsink is put together, there's no way to use the top plate without the bottom. But I can remove the bottom pad. Hopefully that will be enough. If not, I won't use the heatsink. It puts entirely too much tension on the connector.

Scannerman · Oct 7, 2023

glasskuter said:
The way that heatsink is put together, there's no way to use the top plate without the bottom. But I can remove the bottom pad. Hopefully that will be enough. If not, I won't use the heatsink. It puts entirely too much tension on the connector.

If the airflow is good you likely don't need it anyway, but if you're putting it in a laptop I would advise at least keeping one thermal pad on it. BTW those are very good read/write speeds and they're just what I predicted in some of my earlier posts. You're approaching the maximum speeds you can reasonably expect with PCIe Gen 3 there.

Flashorn · Oct 7, 2023

glasskuter said:
It puts entirely too much tension on the connector.

Hey Glasskuter!
Well, that was easy. Now, installing a nvme , you plug it in at a 45 degree angle and push down the end
to secure it with that tiny screw that everybody seems to loose. There should be some resistance but, not
enough to de-solder the connector off the motherboard.
As far as temps go like Scannerman suggested, if there is sufficient air flow then , you might consider losing
the thermal pad underneath the SSD. What size pad did you use? If it's 1mm then , simply drop it down to
0.5mm. That should make things easier if you do want to keep it.

Those bench numbers are almost the same on your PCIe 3 that I'm getting on the PCIe 4 for my Solidigm.
Did you install their software yet and if so, what do you think of it?

I'm glad you got it done but, are you happy with the outcome?

glasskuter · Oct 7, 2023

@Flashorn, I'm very happy. I did install their toolkit software and it's quite impressive. I held off installing their driver because my UEFI bios has Intel IRST enabled as the storage controller so I can't boot without its driver. I've read tons of stuff but can't find out how this drive's performance would be affected by installing it's own storage controller driver vs using IRST. I emailed Solidigm support asking this question but haven't heard back yet.

Scannerman · Oct 7, 2023

This was Solidigm's answer for me. It also used to include my Intel Optane NVMe but I removed that stick of NVMe because Intel no longer supports Optane.

End-Of-Life (EOL) Announcement for the Intel® Rapid Storage...

Intel® RST and Intel® Optane™ Memory applications have reached EOL and won’t be updated. A new application will replace both for newer Intel RST® driver versions.

www.intel.com

Flashorn · Oct 7, 2023

glasskuter said:
bios has Intel IRST enabled as the storage controller

Good, I know how hard it is to get answers to specific questions also. I hope you do get a response from
Solidigm but, in the mean time, you could go on the Intel community and ask around to see if anyone might
have an answer for you.

Memory & Storage

Support for issues related to Memory & Storage

community.intel.com

Also, you have the P44 to my P41. In the software, do you have the ability to access the Fast Lane tab.
I ask because I read that this option was for the P41 only but, they were working to make it possible to
apply the same to the P44.

I don't have the RST controller on my notebook. Here's my Device Manager - Fast lane option and Crystal speed
from my P41 gen 4 which is basically the same as your Gen 3. Pretty impressive that drive.

let us know if you get info from one or both if you choose to visit Intel.

glasskuter · Oct 7, 2023

Flashorn said:
do you have the ability to access the Fast Lane tab.

yes, I do.

Solved Hey hardware guys. Need advice on m.2 drive

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