[SOLVED] SSD caching for 2TB drive? Best setup?

[Franziska]

Hi,

I just bought a new high end notebook with the following details and usage and need some advice for the best way to set the machine up for maximum performance.

CONFIGURATION:

Model:
XMG Apex 15
Processor:
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
RAM:
2x 32GB DDR4-2666 Samsung
Graphics card:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 refresh 8GB GDDR6
SSD:
1x 1TB M.2 Samsung 970 EVO Plus PCI 3.0 x4 N
HDD:
1x 2TB WD Blue

Due to budget constrains the second bay for a second internal SSD needs to stay empty right now.

USAGE:

3D Design & extensive rendering
4k video editing.
Large graphics file editing (sometimes 20 000 x 15 000 pixels and more)
No gaming.

SOFTWARE:

Windows 10 Pro
Blender 2.83 (Cycles & Eevee)
Rhinoceros 3D
Affinity Photo
Power Director 17 Pro

For the moment I plan to use the internal 1TB SSD roughly as follows:

1x 350GB Windows & Software Partition
1x 600GB Partion for current projects & frequently access to things like material textures, reference files and similar
1x 50GB Partition as buffer for the 2TB storage HDD

The 2TB HDD is used for storage such as less frequently used files (non current projects and similar.

Now here is the question.

1)Is this the best setup with this hardware for fastest performance (Hardware changes are not really an option)?
2)Does it make sense to set the dedicaded 50GB partition of the SSD aside as buffer for the 2TB HDD?
3)Should this buffer be bigger or smaller?
4)Should I install windows on the SSD?

Thanks so much for your advice!

Fran

 

[USAFRet]

Given those...

1. Not IMHO
2. No.
3. See #2
4. Yes, absolutely.

I wouldn't have a "buffer" for the HDD at all. Just a waste of 50GB.

SSD for the OS, applications, plugins, working files and projects.
Offload your projects to the HDD when done.

And a SATA III 1TB can be had for as little as $100, to replace the HDD.

 

[Franziska]

Thank you. Interesting still, just that I understand, why would the extra buffer partition on the SSD not accelerate the 2TB HDD (5400rpm)?
Would that not work similar to a Hybrid drive (which I would have opted for but it's not available through my supplier right now).

Regarding the Sata 3 1TB for 100$, that the issue it's only 1TB.
Coming from a desktop system with a total of about 6TB of project files which get accessed frequently, I feel that cutting storage down to 1TB would be too restrictive. Actually I would have bought twp 2TB SSD but currently they are still to expensive.
I'll leave that until prices drop....

Thanks anyway.

Given those...

1. Not IMHO
2. No.
3. See #2
4. Yes, absolutely.

I wouldn't have a "buffer" for the HDD at all. Just a waste of 50GB.

SSD for the OS, applications, plugins, working files and projects.
Offload your projects to the HDD when done.

And a SATA III 1TB can be had for as little as $100, to replace the HDD.

 

[USAFRet]

True, that $100-1TB is only 1TB.
But, storage space is easy to add/change later. Something to think about.

For the cache space for the HDD? From your description, the stuff that will reside on the HDD does not need that anyway. This is typical.
Doing that just adds complexity and fail points, for no real benefit.

A cache like that only benefits in Read. Write actions still happen at HDD speed.


And how's you proposed backup situation?

 

[Franziska]

Thanks.

I did not know that a SSD just speeds up read.

Btw. Regarding the internal SSD of 1 TB. That's the solution for now. Once prices come down in 2-3years, I'll replace the single 1TB SSD with a 2TB SSD and add another 2TB SSD in the empty second bay. Might even run them as Raid 1 than.
Unfortunately that's not an option right now. 2x 7mm 2TB SSD is over budget.
I did already go for max processor, RAM and graphics.

Backup is a 10TB external disk which I have already. Eventually I plan to get a second one of these and keep them as Raid 1 in a NAS. Once a back up is done I'll store those on separate locations until the next backup.

 

[USAFRet]

Don't put a 1TB NVMe SSD in a RAID array with a 1TB SATA III SSD.
That just slows the whole array down to SATA III speed.

 

[Franziska]

Don't worry, that's not the plan.
There are 2 PCI bays for the SSD's.

The HDD is separate.

Well see over time what happens. The HP Z800 I run at the moment had a Raid 1 for the working files. Which, once saved my butt.
Unfortunately that's not possible on the Apex.
Raid 1 on the 2 SSD working drive setup does not really make that much sense, as the software and operating system are the stuff which can be easily replaced. In this case I think Raid 0 would be more sensible as that gives higher speed.
Still I am not sure if I even end up with ever using a Raid on this machine as that speed increase of the Raid 0 would not be huge.

The more I think of it, I'll most likely eventually end up with one SSD for software and operating system. When I run out of space a second SSD in the second bay and the HDD for less frequent accessed stuff.

https://www.xmg.gg/en/xmg-apex-15

I'll need to adjust, it's just a different machine requiring a different setup.

Thanks for your thoughts & have a great weekend.

 

[USAFRet]

RAID 0 on SSD, especially NVMe drives, give no real benefit.

SATA III
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

NVMe
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-950-pro-256gb-raid-report,4449.html