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Speeding up NinjaTrader with a RAM drive (ramdisk)


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Speeding up NinjaTrader with a RAM drive (ramdisk)

  #81 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
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futuretrader View Post
Hi all,

I have a notebook with a SSD as the primary disk and a SD for some extra storage. Would it make sense to move the GOMFOLDER and NT db to the SD in order to save wear and tear on the SSD? And would it possibly make some difference to NT getting a bit sluggish in high volume bursts?

Thanks

See post 71 from me. It will delay writes and save wear and tear on SSD. But be certain your system is 100% stable and on a UPS.

Mike

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  #82 (permalink)
 gomi 
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I'm not sure you should make any decision that would only be justified by the sole reduction of SSD "wear",even with TLC cells.

Here are tests of Samsung 840 SSDs
Hardware.Info tests lifespan of Samsung SSD 840 250GB TLC SSD [Updated with final conclusion] - Final update (20-6-2013) | Hardware.Info United States
AnandTech | Samsung SSD 840: Testing the Endurance of TLC NAND

=> estimation about 10-20 years of life if you write 10 GB/day on it.

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  #83 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
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gomi View Post
I'm not sure you should make any decision that would only be justified by the sole reduction of SSD "wear",even with TLC cells.

Here are tests of Samsung 840 SSDs
Hardware.Info tests lifespan of Samsung SSD 840 250GB TLC SSD [Updated with final conclusion] - Final update (20-6-2013) | Hardware.Info United States
AnandTech | Samsung SSD 840: Testing the Endurance of TLC NAND

=> estimation about 10-20 years of life if you write 10 GB/day on it.

Very true.

I am writing about 50GB a day on my personal workstation, over 2x256GB in a R0. This is calculated by looking at system up time and total writes.

I do all my heavy lifting on network drives, such as storing daily images, music, movies, etc. So for me the number represents just typical usage (trading, email, browsing, running small business).

Mike

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  #84 (permalink)
 futuretrader 
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Big Mike View Post
See post 71 from me. It will delay writes and save wear and tear on SSD. But be certain your system is 100% stable and on a UPS.

Mike

Thanks Mike, I only have 4GB of RAM on the notebook (and it's one of those new-fangled ones you can't drop another chip into). Is it possible / worthwhile to have a chunk of it devoted to a such a cache?

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  #85 (permalink)
 futuretrader 
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gomi View Post
I'm not sure you should make any decision that would only be justified by the sole reduction of SSD "wear",even with TLC cells.

Here are tests of Samsung 840 SSDs
Hardware.Info tests lifespan of Samsung SSD 840 250GB TLC SSD [Updated with final conclusion] - Final update (20-6-2013) | Hardware.Info United States
AnandTech | Samsung SSD 840: Testing the Endurance of TLC NAND

=> estimation about 10-20 years of life if you write 10 GB/day on it.

That's interesting, thanks. I'd come across a number of references to SSD performance degeneration and endurance, where people seemed to think constant writing was something to be avoided. But I suppose compared to video and photo editing, trading data doesn't add up to anything much.

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  #86 (permalink)
 
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 kronie 
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Big Mike View Post
I've been trying out PrimoCache. Under most circumstances it makes more sense than a dedicated ramdisk, and will offer the same performance benefits.

I am using a delayed write setting of 60 seconds. I see NinjaTrader writing 50,000 blocks per minute during large backtests, so this can really help both in terms of performance as well as lifespan (SSD wear level).

I am using an 8GB cache and with my normal day to day stuff, my cache hit ratio is only around 25%. If I increased my cache size to 16GB I would have much higher ratio, as I've only read 16.4GB from disk total since my last reboot. The problem is, I need around 20GB of memory to start Sierra Chart when it is loading all my charts (once it loads them, usage is only 1GB), so the max I can safely use for the cache disk is around 8GB. I have 32GB total.

Anyway, you might try it. No need for symlink and it will work with any program, not just ones you've configured to use the ramdrive.

Naturally you should always have a backup of any important data before using something like this.

Mike



@mike

so in lieu of the entire process of establishing a ramdisk, establishing an image for that ramdisk, copying files to initialize that ramdisk, having it start when windows starts, initiating a full dump / write to disk before windows shuts down (which has been said takes minutes or noticable amounts of time), and establishing procedures to backup and possibly restore (other users comments of their various ramdisk software experiences) from.

so in lieu of all the above, you alternately use PrimoCache ( PrimoCache Overview) instead and have reaped similar performance improvements all around.

if so, brilliant!


reason being is, after reading two sets of instructions from both Dataram and SoftPerfect; getting basic questions answered from their tech support, and implementing this solution, then to notice this as a complete alternative (logically I could not see the need to implement both solutions as they would both be competing for the unused RAM), this seems almost too good to be true

thanks for bringing this alternate solution to the fore, as it especially eliminates the shutdown pre-step of making sure you have backups in case of system crashes and losses of data, as well as the write before shutdown phase not working, should that happen. One user said his systems froze and so did his other appplications, so this does happen.

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  #87 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
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Yes. BTW, after more uptime my cache hit ratio is 75%

Sent from my LG Optimus G Pro

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  #88 (permalink)
 
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 Beljevina 
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Guss View Post
Thank you for your informative reply, much appreciated
will build a new workspace over the weekend, and test the performance again
Regards
Guss

@Guss, For the benefit of others, reading this perhaps down the road, were you able to make your situation better?

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  #89 (permalink)
 
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 kronie 
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Big Mike View Post
Yes. BTW, after more uptime my cache hit ratio is 75%

Sent from my LG Optimus G Pro

how?

did you assign the entire ninjatrader 7\db to this cache?, or it simply intercepts any and all accesses to the HDD by managing its own cache space based on some frequency of access?

or did you specify some files to be considered for the smart cache service, and let it handle space issues?

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  #90 (permalink)
 
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 kronie 
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Big Mike View Post
Yes. BTW, after more uptime my cache hit ratio is 75%

Sent from my LG Optimus G Pro



at this time, only the Beta version is available for usage, not even the standard version, just beneath it. What settings did you choose, that provided such remarked and noticeable improvements?

step1) hit the folder with the green plus to establish a cache on the primary C drive logical NTFS portion, no the smaller system reserve partition


step2) which configuration did you choose? improve read; improve write; custom?
step3) memory overhead read what value? 963.02MB? because its using not any additional memory, just what is remaining up to the 4GB limit (so if you have a 16gb system, its not even offering to use those 12+gb area)

step4) change any preconfigured settings?; change the quota limit max UIM to 960mb? confirm IMM has started?, confirm Level-1 size is 128mb?

just curious, because after doing some HDD file maintenance (cuts / paste, deletes) as well as running Ninja with 6 workspaces the machine never shut down, even after 20+ minutes in the shutdown phase. eventually pressing the power button was the solution

have you been able to assign the "above 4gb" memory to be used, or is this only with a ramcache? (I am beginning to think these are indeed two non-compete methods)

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