Django Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 Hi guys I am setting up my system and I just wanted to check best practice running my SSDs for best gaming performance. All your thoughts are welcome. 2X Samsung Evo 860 SATA SSDs, one for Win10 and one for flight sims. Most recent firmware. Formatted with NTFS file system (OS drive has 3 partitions created by the Win10 installer). Q1) Does the choice of file system matter for an SSD in terms of performance? Q2) Enable drive provisioning, yes or no? Q3) Best Samsung Magician drive mode? Q4) Will using system memory as drive cache effect gaming with 16GB RAM? Regards, Django. | BMS | DCS OB | A-10C II | AV-8B | F-16C | F/A-18C | FC3 | Persian Gulf | Supercarrier | Tacview | XP11 | FF A320 | FF 757 | | I7-9700K + NH-D15 | RTX3080Ti 12GB | DDR4-3200 16GB | Aorus Z390 Ultra | 2X Evo 860 1TB | 850W | Torrent Case | | Warthog HOTAS + CH Pedals | 32" TV 1080p 60Hz | TrackIR5 |
MAXsenna Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 Q1) Does the choice of file system matter for an SSD in terms of performance? Q2) Enable drive provisioning, yes or no? Q3) Best Samsung Magician drive mode? Q4) Will using system memory as drive cache effect gaming with 16GB RAM? Q1. Use the whole drive, and for Windows NTFS is the only correct option.Q2. What do you mean by that? Use the whole drive now. No need to let it expand and by no means make multiple partitions. Windows does for the OS drive for boot and security, not performance.Q3. Don't remember. Might check when I get home. But if one of them is "performance" I'm pretty sure I used that.Q4. Not sure. DCS likes at least 32Gigs now. Will have at least 128 in my next rig.Cheers! Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
BitMaster Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 Q1 as said before, NTFS is your only choice [unless you want to dive very deep into NAS, iSCSI Block devices, ZFS and 10Gbit networking...there are options beyond average Joe's capabilities.] Q2 means something else. You can take iirc 10% of the total capacity away and hide it from the OS NTFS and use it to keep the drive integer. I don't do it, but that's only me Q3 don't use any of the Samsung options is my best advice. Keep it simple Q4 Just DON'T. 16GB is far too little anyway and thentaking some of them to cache the drive, not a good idea. This option is only present with Sata SSD's, NVMe drives don't have this btw ( in Samsung Partition Software ) 1 Gigabyte Aorus X570S Master - Ryzen 5900X - Gskill 64GB 3200/CL14@3600/CL14 - Sapphire Nitro+ 7800XT - 4x Samsung 980Pro 1TB - 1x Samsung 870 Evo 1TB - 1x SanDisc 120GB SSD - Heatkiller IV - MoRa3-360LT@9x120mm Noctua F12 - Corsair AXi-1200 - TiR5-Pro - Warthog Hotas - Saitek Combat Pedals - Asus XG27ACG QHD 180Hz - Corsair K70 RGB Pro - Win11 Pro/Linux - Phanteks Evolv-X
MAXsenna Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 31 minutes ago, BitMaster said: Q1 as said before, NTFS is your only choice [unless you want to dive very deep into NAS, iSCSI Block devices, ZFS and 10Gbit networking...there are options beyond average Joe's capabilities.] Q2 means something else. You can take iirc 10% of the total capacity away and hide it from the OS NTFS and use it to keep the drive integer. I don't do it, but that's only me Q3 don't use any of the Samsung options is my best advice. Keep it simple Q4 Just DON'T. 16GB is far too little anyway and thentaking some of them to cache the drive, not a good idea. This option is only present with Sata SSD's, NVMe drives don't have this btw ( in Samsung Partition Software ) Q2, is it like you reserve a chunk for trimming or similar?
kksnowbear Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 Q2: Part of the drive is reserved from use by the system, and is devoted to extending the life of the SSD by replacing NAND cells from the reserved area as the worn cells are retired. TBH, very few people really need to worry about this, but it can depend on what the drive is used for. The cells 'wear' is based on writes to that cell, and unless you're doing a crap ton of writes, it's not really likely to be a problem - and keep in mind the drive will already have a certain amount of space for this, even if you don't 'overprovision' it. Other than that, it will have zero impact on performance. Only in the sense that the lifetime of the drive is part of 'performance' overall. To echo what Bitmaster said above: The Samsung options for performance aren't really what we might consider "performance", in that they don't really improve reads or writes to/from the drive at all. The 'performance' improvement they refer to is about longevity/lifespan of the drive. 1 1 Free professional advice: Do not rely upon any advice concerning computers from anyone who uses the terms "beast" or "rocking" to refer to computer hardware. Just...don't. You've been warned. While we're at it, people should stop using the term "uplift" to convey "increase". This is a technical endeavor, we're not in church or at the movies - and it's science, not drama.
MAXsenna Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 Thanks @kksnowbear for the detailed explanation. I guessed correctly in my head even, if I didn't use the correct words.In my computer I have six samsung EVO 840s 513GB in two stripes. 2 (PS) and 4 (DCS and stuff). Bought and running pretty much 24/7 from May 2013. Never had a hickup, lots of reads and writes, torrents, Plex and what not. Guess the 3000 bucks they cost was worth it. Cheers! Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
BitMaster Posted August 29, 2023 Posted August 29, 2023 You are lucky with those 840 Evo's. Iirc those were a bit troublesome with the wrong firmware etc.. Raid-0 is a valid construct to leverage the combined space and also scale speed with each drive added. Done this myself and will do it again if the need arises. Just be aware of the Raid-0 pitfall... 1 Gigabyte Aorus X570S Master - Ryzen 5900X - Gskill 64GB 3200/CL14@3600/CL14 - Sapphire Nitro+ 7800XT - 4x Samsung 980Pro 1TB - 1x Samsung 870 Evo 1TB - 1x SanDisc 120GB SSD - Heatkiller IV - MoRa3-360LT@9x120mm Noctua F12 - Corsair AXi-1200 - TiR5-Pro - Warthog Hotas - Saitek Combat Pedals - Asus XG27ACG QHD 180Hz - Corsair K70 RGB Pro - Win11 Pro/Linux - Phanteks Evolv-X
kksnowbear Posted August 29, 2023 Posted August 29, 2023 Yeah I found myself an "early adopter" when SATA SSDs first started to become reasonable c.2008 or so. Bought four 30G OCZ Vertex drives and set up a RAID0 array on a "real" (hardware) controller. Very fast for its time, but after the third drive the speed increase wasn't really linear TBH. Of course then PCIe based SSDs came along (RevoDrive, which iirc had an internal RAID volume) and blew the doors off the 4x SATA array anyhow. And then came NVMe lol... 1 Free professional advice: Do not rely upon any advice concerning computers from anyone who uses the terms "beast" or "rocking" to refer to computer hardware. Just...don't. You've been warned. While we're at it, people should stop using the term "uplift" to convey "increase". This is a technical endeavor, we're not in church or at the movies - and it's science, not drama.
MAXsenna Posted August 30, 2023 Posted August 30, 2023 You are lucky with those 840 Evo's. Iirc those were a bit troublesome with the wrong firmware etc.. Raid-0 is a valid construct to leverage the combined space and also scale speed with each drive added. Done this myself and will do it again if the need arises. Just be aware of the Raid-0 pitfall...Real admins don't do backup.No worries. I have 10 spindles in my Synology NAS on RAID6, and 48 in my EVA4400. Interesting about the 840s, never read about the any issues with them. Got 10 of them at the time. All them are in daily use. Cheers! Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
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