Primocache Guidance

[nagetech 66]

Howdy everyone!

Reaching out to the Primocache users.

I picked up a license some time ago, and just recently found some time coming up, and thought it was time to find a way to tune the 'ol server.

I'm using a R730 server with 64GB RAM. Emby is humming along on a Raid 1 array with 2 x 860PRO EVOs. Presently, all my media is housed on Hard Drives of all various sizes managed by Drive Pool.

Right now I have 2 x 1TB 850EVO drives laying around itching for a project.

Looking over the settings for Primocache, I get the gist of it, but not sure I fully understand what the best settings would be.

Ideally, I'd like to make use of all the spare RAM I have and maybe even the SSDs to speed up the Drivepool arrays.

 

Hoping some of the seasoned pros on here can share some insight with their setups to help us noobs start off on the right foot

 

Thank you ahead of time!

 

 

[Luke 37021]

@Dizzy49

[Dizzy49 94]

I just went through this a bit myself.

A couple things I found out.  The more drives you add to PrimoCache, and the larger amount of space you give to PrimoCache the more Ram it uses.

I have a 250GB NVMe drive that I added to PrimoCache, and then I added each drive individually to PrimoCache.  It used up WAY too much ram and ground my server to a halt.  I couldn't even remote onto the server anymore.

What I ended up doing was only adding the pooled Drivepool drive to PrimoCache.  That gave me the best balance.  If you find that you have more RAM that you can spare, you can add another cache just using the RAM by itself.  Keep in mind that you would want the amount to be larger than your average file sizes.  The vast majority of my files are around 6GB, so doing 4GB from RAM would add very little benefit

Let me know how it goes for you!

[nagetech 66]

Thanks for the reply!

 

I was taken back by something you said. You pointed Primo cache at the actual pooled drive letter instead of the individual drives.

 

What exactly is the difference in doing that? I have about 40 drives in my server, and each rule you set in Primo cache had a 15 drive limit or so (doing this from memory)

 

Looking forward to hearing back!

[Luke 37021]

@Dizzy49

[nagetech 66]

Just reporting back.

 

I was toying around with Primo Cache, and did as suggested where I pointed the cache towards the Pooled Drive Letter as opposed to the physical volumes. What resulted was, after 48 hours, the cache hasn't been used at all. I checked and double checked my settings, but as long as it is pointed at the Drive Letter of the Pooled Drive, it does nothing.

 

Setting up separate cache for every 15 drives or so is a bit of a pain. I have 40 drives in my server.

 

Thanks for helping out so far!