Cache drive as cache_dirs?


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Not sure what you're asking here.

 

Cache Dirs is a utility to cache the directories of your disks in RAM so disks don't need to be spun up to access the directories.

 

A cache drive is used to cache disk writes so they'll be quicker than writing directly to the protected array -- writes can occur at "disk speed" instead of requiring 4 disk operations per write (which are required to maintain parity).

 

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Not sure what you're asking here.

 

Cache Dirs is a utility to cache the directories of your disks in RAM so disks don't need to be spun up to access the directories.

 

A cache drive is used to cache disk writes so they'll be quicker than writing directly to the protected array -- writes can occur at "disk speed" instead of requiring 4 disk operations per write (which are required to maintain parity).

I think what he is asking is if instead of keeping the directories cached in ram, to use a cache device (probably an SSD) to do this instead, saving that oh-so-precious RAM.

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Yes, that makes sense.    Of course then the cache drive has to spin up to access the directories (unless it's an SSD ... in which case it simply needs to exit standby if it's in that mode).

 

I don't see much benefit to this, as Cache Dirs doesn't really use all that much RAM in the great scheme of things when considering how much RAM modern systems have.

 

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I also do not see how such a capability could easily be implemented! 

 

The existing cache-dirs. plugin leverages the built-in Linux behaviour of trying to keep in RAM frequently used file/directory information.  Trying to engineer in a different mechanism to achieve similar results would almost certainly be very difficult and error-prone.

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Basically I think you are asking if there is a Paging File capability to set up a SSD as a Virtual Ram disk. Sort of what windows does.

I don't know myself but from the sounds of it I think that is what you are after.

 

I found a swapfile plugin but looks so far to be for Unraid 5. Anyone know if it works for 6 or if there is a version for 6 out there?

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Basically I think you are asking if there is a Paging File capability to set up a SSD as a Virtual Ram disk. Sort of what windows does.

I don't know myself but from the sounds of it I think that is what you are after.

 

I found a swapfile plugin but looks so far to be for Unraid 5. Anyone know if it works for 6 or if there is a version for 6 out there?

 

Found Raid 6 - Basic for now only uses Cache Drive. I have a mounted appdisk that is an SSD and it doesn't support it ATM. Looks to be a active project though for this developer. Worth Watching.

http://unraid.zeron.ca/plugins/swapfile/SwapFile.plg

 

Found Unraid 5

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theone11/swapfile_plugin/master/swapfile.plg

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