Using SSD for cache? Any guide that I must not miss?

[soder]

Right now I'm using my old HTPC (GA-MA78GM-S2H, AMD Athlon™ Dual Core 4850e.K @ 2500, 4GB RAM) as my first unRAID server. I got 2 WD Red 8TB disks, and not using any parity drive.

 

Mostly I use the server to be able to stream my media to LibreELEC htpc over a gigabit LAN, but also running Transmission on the server (and I plan to use MySQL, FlexGet, CouchPotato and stuff like that).

 

I'm think to use a SSD for the cache (since that's what I've heard is a great thing to do), and I wonder is a 80GB is big enough, or if even a 128GB SSD is big enough? What I understand is that if I got a SSD, the drives could be spinned down more than they are now, since that the SSD will be used during the download until the torrent is completely downloaded? Is that right?

 

I use settings in Transmission that the files are downloaded directly to the path I want, with the .incomplete at the ending, instead of downloading to something like /download first, and then moving the file. Does that in some way interfere with the main purpose of a SSD for me?

 

Also, what happens if I download a torrent that is 200GB big?

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Edit: Found this http://lime-technology.com/wiki/Cache_disk

 

/Söder

[trurl]

Be sure to check out those other links at the top of that wiki for more about how cache is used on V6.

[tdallen]

On 2/6/2018 at 8:43 AM, soder said:

I wonder is a 80GB is big enough, or if even a 128GB SSD is big enough?

80GB would be rather small for a cache drive used for Dockers.  I'd view 128GB as a more realistic minimum and 250GB is where most people start off.  Obviously, it depends on what you do with it - you might need something bigger, or smaller.  I've got a 20GB Docker file and find it's easy to accumulate stuff in appdata, though.