Samsung EVO SSD's and Rapid Mode.

Ntrospect · June 17, 2019

I did a forum search and didn't find anything about rapid mode so I thought I might create a post about it in case it's useful to someone.

I purchased two EVO 860's last week, they're great drives, however I only just stumbled across Samsung's Rapid Drive tech, I didn't know

of its existence until now. You'll lose 1GB of RAM to Rapid Mode, the drive apparently uses it as a buffer to create nice efficient fast sequential

read and writes. Rapid mode is available on EVO's dating all the way back to the 400 series.

Samsung software:

Link

I have one of the 500GB EVO's solely dedicated to DCS and its saved games folder and that is the drive I enabled Rapid Mode.

(*Note: The reason I say this is as far as I can tell, you can only enable RM on 1x EVO drive per system?).

Here's a pre-rapid mode screenshot from last week:

And from 15 minutes ago after enabling Rapid Mode

(Same EVO drive, I changed the designation from F: to E)

Slight jump on the read and writes I'd say o.0 , most definitely very noticeable in-game, zero in-game loading stutters thus far, smoooooth.

If you have an EVO and want to enable RM on your drive, install their software, launch, and the rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Also, you may as well update your firmware whilst in the console if it's old, takes about 15 seconds+reboot. :)

Hopefully this is useful to some of you guys with EVO's that may be unaware of Rapid Mode, as I was....

Cheers

Ntro

lancerr · June 17, 2019

Awesome. Thanks. Does this work on Pro's as well?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

BitMaster · June 17, 2019

Yes it does, on all sata SSD's, Evo or Pro. It does not work with NVMe or Raided drives and it does take some of your RAM away, so if you are a 16GB Pilot, think twice !!!

Also, you have to deactivate it ( with reboots ) in order to flash the firmware.

etherbattx · June 18, 2019

Samsung EVO SSD's and Rapid Mode.

how does this work, technically?

is the drive so fast it can read stored data faster than the computer can handle, so it buffers the extra data in ram until the computer is ready?

Drag80 · June 18, 2019

I think the file search indexes are stored in RAM so it is quickly accessed.

Dudikoff · June 18, 2019

I presume it just caches the frequently used files and since it uses RAM, I guess it's only useful for smaller files. And if memory serves me right, when it came out it was mostly proved useless so I doubt it makes a difference in DCS.

lancerr · June 19, 2019

Awesome. I have two 500gb evos and a 1tb pro and dcs is on the pro so very excited to try it. Glad I did 32gB on the ram side.

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Slug72 · June 20, 2019

I have one of the 500GB EVO's solely dedicated to DCS and its saved games folder and that is the drive I enabled Rapid Mode.
(*Note: The reason I say this is as far as I can tell, you can only enable RM on 1x EVO drive per system?).

It's a limitation of either the hardware or the Magician software. I have 3 supported Samsung EVOs (a 500GB 860, and 250/500GB 850s) and can also only enable Rapid Mode on a single drive.

And if memory serves me right, when it came out it was mostly proved useless so I doubt it makes a difference in DCS.

Look at the difference in sequential reads Ntrospect recorded... a ten-fold improvement could make a huge difference if DCS is (for example) having to reload terrain detail on-the-fly.

If you have a supported Samsung SSD, testing for yourself costs nothing but time. Magician will not affect non-Samsung drives so you can experiment for yourself with impunity,

hansangb · June 20, 2019

It's a limitation of either the hardware or the Magician software. I have 3 supported Samsung EVOs (a 500GB 860, and 250/500GB 850s) and can also only enable Rapid Mode on a single drive.

Look at the difference in sequential reads Ntrospect recorded... a ten-fold improvement could make a huge difference if DCS is (for example) having to reload terrain detail on-the-fly.

If you have a supported Samsung SSD, testing for yourself costs nothing but time. Magician will not affect non-Samsung drives so you can experiment for yourself with impunity,

I have an NVMe for the OS and DCS. But my D drive has Steam/Origin stuff. I guess there's no harm in enabling on that drive.

Thanks for the heads up.

oboe · June 20, 2019

Ntrospect, nice find.

How much RAM do you have? I'm wondering if I'd run into problems in MP as I have only 16GB RAM.

Dudikoff · June 20, 2019

Look at the difference in sequential reads Ntrospect recorded... a ten-fold improvement could make a huge difference if DCS is (for example) having to reload terrain detail on-the-fly.

Again, that's because the small files the benchmark uses are cached in the RAM. This technology is nothing new, and when it came out, I've read some reviews and saw no real-world benefits (e.g. loading times and such) except in a few benchmarks.

Reloading terrain detail on the fly? For PG, the main terrain file alone is 16 GB and the whole map is 32 GB worth of files. Not sure how much RAM you'd want to dedicate to cache the SSD reads to be able to fit these maps (i.e. you'd need 64 GB of RAM), but in that case why not just let DCS use it directly?

Edited June 20, 2019 by Dudikoff

etherbattx · June 20, 2019

please test.

i’d be interested in seeing some “DCS” specific benchmarks.

most disk benchmarks have little if any relevance to real world apps.

Slug72 · June 20, 2019

Again, that's because the small files the benchmark uses are cached in the RAM. This technology is nothing new, and when it came out, I've read some reviews and saw no real-world benefits (e.g. loading times and such) except in a few benchmarks.

Maybe it will make no difference. As the Magician software is free though, and has other practical benefits such as updating SSD firmware, it's worth experimenting with. All it costs is a reboot... no risk to data.

Dudikoff · June 20, 2019

Maybe it will make no difference. As the Magician software is free though, and has other practical benefits such as updating SSD firmware, it's worth experimenting with. All it costs is a reboot... no risk to data.

The RAPID mode has been available for 5+ years, but somehow nobody discovered its worth till now and all those reviews showing it pretty much useless were wrong. Yeah, right.

The Windows already does file read caching if you have enough free RAM so adding another cache layer would seemingly do little more than waste your available RAM.

Edited June 20, 2019 by Dudikoff

Slug72 · June 21, 2019

The RAPID mode has been available for 5+ years, but somehow nobody discovered its worth till now and all those reviews showing it pretty much useless were wrong. Yeah, right.

Nobody said reviews were "wrong"; I'm merely suggesting trying it and seeing if it makes a difference. Take it or leave it, it's no skin off my nose. ;)

hansangb · June 22, 2019

Nobody said reviews were "wrong"; I'm merely suggesting trying it and seeing if it makes a difference. Take it or leave it, it's no skin off my nose. ;)

It's almost as if you were trying to convert a Catholic to Islam. :D

Dudikoff · June 22, 2019

Nobody said reviews were "wrong"; I'm merely suggesting trying it and seeing if it makes a difference. Take it or leave it, it's no skin off my nose. ;)

I tried to provide arguments on how it works and why it won't make any difference to anyone with an SSD so to me it's like suggesting to check if the earth was flat or not.

Anyway, you said you saw a tenfold improvement in the test and expect some difference in DCS and you have the Samsung SSD's,so why didn't you try it yourself already?

etherbattx · June 22, 2019

Samsung EVO SSD's and Rapid Mode.

10x?

so you can load a 75 second mission in 7.5 seconds?

i would like to see this!

any videos?

Edited June 22, 2019 by etherbattx

Alpine1 · June 22, 2019

I just installed The EVO 860 yesterday.A 1TB,DCS dedicated rig.Will certainly check this out.Thanks for posting.

Mustang · June 22, 2019

Been using RAPID mode with my 500gb SATA3 850Evo for ages, never had a single problem with it and DCS.

Django · June 23, 2019

Can anyone suggest a technical reason why this feature is limited to only one SATA SSD?

Also, for those running two SATA SSDs, one for OS and one for DCS, is there really any advantage for DCS vs all on one SATA SSD? I figure you'd be better off all on one SSD with Rapid Mode enabled.

Slug72 · June 24, 2019

Anyway, you said you saw a tenfold improvement in the test and expect some difference in DCS and you have the Samsung SSD's,so why didn't you try it yourself already?

First off, I saw a 10x improvement in the OP's tests.

Second, I suggested that there might be a difference in DCS.

Thirdly, I simply don't give a toss.

It's almost as if you were trying to convert a Catholic to Islam. :D

Except that your example is apposite to the teaching of The Koran :(

My apologies for intruding into the cosy DCS world... won't happen again. :doh:

hansangb · June 24, 2019

--snippage--
My apologies for intruding into the cosy DCS world... won't happen again. :doh:

There are a lot of good and valuable advice being given on the forum on a daily basis. Give it a shot a bit longer and you'll be able to separate wheat from chaff. Also, my comment about Catholics -> Islam was pointing out that some part of sim'ing is like religion. :D

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