AMD Raid Setup

[Ed P]

I’m speccing out a new PC for myself, and I quite fancy an M-2 RAID-0 to bust through any VM i/o bottlenecks. (It would also be quite awesome for games!)

Has anyone any experience in setting up an AMD Raid?

When I read through the AMD manual, setting up a RAID is very different from the Intel/Adaptec methods. In fact it seemed so awkward it reminded me of the old joke where the punchline is ‘standing up in a hammock’ !

[keith with the teef]

I’m not to sure it will be good for games if you are referring to load times.

Also, have you got windows set for virtual in the bios and windows set to run virtual. If so your VM should not be slow. Although I’m not 100% about this. Its just something I was looking at the other day when I wanted to run an android simulator. Which I have put on the back burner for now.

[Ed P]

You are probably right for  games, except two small M-2s are often cheaper than one big one.

With respect to VMs, it depends what the VM is doing and how many are being run simultaneously (assuming that the host is on the OS drive). Something like a compile has a lot of i/o going on, as does training an AI or rendering . Although the VM i/o should be separate, the host seems to participate in the overall i/o process.

I know I’ll get push-back on RAID-0 security, but I only keep ‘disposable’ stuff on the OS, the VM drives are a different matter and are subject to regular backup. In fact as the whole environment of a VM is in one ‘container’, backup is essentially just a single file per VM backup.

[keith with the teef]

Ed P wrote:

except two small M-2s are often cheaper than one big one.

Yeah. Good idea. But for me 6 &1 and /

I found this vid if any one fancy’s setting windows for VM.

My self I want to use VM, Andriod emulator for one app only ONKYO player. I figure its one of the best and hooks directly into the DAC (most important) With windows set to VM I think it will do just that. Hook in. We will see. Another day.

[Dave Rice]

It’s the old hunt the bottleneck and I honestly don’t know where it will be and if RAID will help. Will the compiler just say Thank You and and saturate the extra?

I keep my VMs on a separate drive to the o/s and another one for things like storing ISOs and backup targets. They are all in a dedicated PC with an 8 core FX8350 with 16GB ram. 2 x 240GB SATA SSDs and a 1TB spinner. I use TightVNC and AnyDesk to access Host and individual VMs.

It does for me but I don’t do much more than model networks and push some data about.  They are quite usable as an “every day” machine.

[Ed P]

As it is no skin off my nose, I’ll get two half-size M-2s and set up initially without RAID but I’ll specify them both as one storage space. I’ll keep my VMs on another drive and not let Windows have them as storage space. If I find that I’m still getting i/o bottlenecks then I’ll RAID the M-2s.

Btw I decided to ‘Spend Kids Inheritance’ so this is the Mobo I’m looking at:

https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-x570-e-gaming-model/

 

 

[Dave Rice]

Nice.

2.5GB Ethernet I just don’t get.

[Ed P]

I suspect that the 2.5Gps refers to the ROG GameFirst networking system and cooperative games play.

https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1043150

It is wasted on me, but it may impress the grandchildren when they are finally allowed to visit!

[Dave Rice]

I can see that maybe they were hoping that manufacturers would rush to produce switches in volume. But NIC teaming seems to be an easier way to achieve that with cheap existing kit. Wi-Fi is getting there.

But even then it would only help with players on the same site.

[keith with the teef]

Look before you leap. There are a lot or reports that the 5 series mobos are intermittently losing USB connection.

AMD are trying to sort but its complicated.

[Ed P]

As AMD are into a huge backorder on series 9 CPUs, I suspect that it will be sorted out long before I actually manage to get any hardware, but I’ll check if the usb2 channel is separate from the usb3 channel and use that if required!

[Dave Rice]

2.5Gbps hits the commercial Wi-Fi world: TP-Link EAP660 HD £270 and I found a matching 2.5Gbe PoE switch, £350 for 8 ports and 2 x 10Gbe SFP uplink slots. All managed by a £60 Omada L2 & L3 controller that’s cloud enabled. Wi-Fi and Ethernet cards are reasonable prices.

That’s not too wacky for say a small design, animation or CAD studio but I think I’ll be waiting for a bit!

[Ed P]

I guess if you are in the ‘pro’ gaming world or a Quant trader then millisecs in lag are worth $$$s. For normal mortals like me it is not really relevant.

 

[keith with the teef]

I used to go to a LAN part near me years ago. Some of ye old MM forumites used to go as well. It ran @ 80Mbps. Not to shabby. But by todays standards it was Carlos Fandango.

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