how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

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erich56
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how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by erich56 »

hi folks,

after installation of FAH to a new PC a few months ago, what I now have is:
a folder called "FAHClient" (with various sub-folders) in "C:/Program Data"
a folder called "FAHClient" (with 2 sub-folders) in "C:/Programs (x86)"

From what I guess, the folder located in "C:/Program Data" is the "working folder" in which all running operations take place.

What I'd like to do is to have FAH do it's work in the newly installed RAMDISK (drive "Z").
Is there an easy way to shift FAH to drive "Z"? Maybe by copying the content of the FAH folders now contained in "C:/Program Data" to a new folder in drive "Z" and making some changes to a specific entry in the registry (pointing to tne changed location of the working folder)? (long time ago, I did something like this with GPUGRID)?
aetch
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by aetch »

Thoughts for options:-
1). reinstall FAH and assign the RAMdisk as your working directory (I think you can do that, I'm not sure)
2). edit the start shortcuts to point to your RAMdisk instead of C:\ProgramData\FAHClient
3). you can specify the folder to mount your RAMdisk on/as
4). create a juntion using the mklink command
5). don't, I ran a RAMdisk for a while and wasn't comfortable doing the periodic backups to ensure if my system crashed it wouldn't lose too much. I felt I was wearing the SSD down more than if I just let the client do its thing.
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gunnarre
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by gunnarre »

I agree with point 5 - don't. If you *have* to do it, do it only with the "work" folder, and symlink the client.db file to a persistent file system. The reason for this is that if you put the client.db file on a RAM drive, you will get a new CPU id every time you restart the computer - which is very annoying in my view.
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aetch
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by aetch »

gunnarre wrote:The reason for this is that if you put the client.db file on a RAM drive, you will get a new CPU id every time you restart the computer - which is very annoying in my view.
Not quite.
I did my testing with lmDisk which allows you to associate the RAMdisk with an .img file which loads into the RAMdisk at boot and saves to the .img at shutdown. I could also instigate a .img save using the command line.
I only used the RAMdisk for the work folder as that was the one that saw all the traffic with the work units coming and going, everything else is pretty much static.
I wasn't too worried about losing data as I was saving the RAMdisk hourly.
I didn't use it for long because I realised it was giving me no performance benefit over the SSD and I was probably wearing out the SSD faster with the hourly backups. It saved the whole RAMdisk to disk every time, not just the updates.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying be sure of what you're getting into and that you're happy with the "what if?" moments.

As an aside, it does nothing to speed up a slow upload/download speed, that's an issue with a busy connection at the server.
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gunnarre
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by gunnarre »

Ah - so you're talking about a semi-persistent solution. I was referring to a RAM-disk which would disappear completely at reboot. As you say SSD-wear may indeed get worse with hourly re-write than just by running it normally; this depending on variables like WU size, frequency of checkpointing, block size of the SSD etc.
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erich56
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by erich56 »

thanks, folks, so far for your interesting thoughts.
Just to give you a little more information about my situation: I installed Primo RAMDISK Professional on my new main cruncher (Intel i9-10900KF - 10 cores / 20 HT; 64GB RAM, 2 x RTX3070) primarily because of the Atlas tasks from LHC which are known as "SSD killer". Sometimes, I also crunch the new GPU tasks from WCG, which have a tremendous write rate on SSD.
Both projects are being processed on the RAMDISK.
Compared to the above projects, FAH writes not as much on the SSD - some 32GB per day. But still, with weeks and months going by, it adds up - about 1 TB per month, after all.
So I was playing with the idea to move FAH (at least the working folder) to the RAMDISK.
As I said, I had done this on an previous PC with GPUGRID, and that was very simple. From what I read above, it obviously is not as simple with FAH. So I may simply forget about it :-)
MeeLee
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by MeeLee »

I've ran FAH workloads on cheaper 32, 64, and 128GB SSDs for years, and nothing happened to the ssd.
If ran via RAMDISK, you'll lose all your progress in a power outage, or if you're running windows, as soon as it forces your pc to restart after an update.
Aside from having to install fah again, you'll have to re-run WUs.
erich56
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by erich56 »

MeeLee wrote:I've ran FAH workloads on cheaper 32, 64, and 128GB SSDs for years, and nothing happened to the ssd.
If ran via RAMDISK, you'll lose all your progress in a power outage, or if you're running windows, as soon as it forces your pc to restart after an update.
Aside from having to install fah again, you'll have to re-run WUs.
well, I'd say: strong arguments. I guess to stick with what I have now will be best anyway :-)
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Re: how to move existing FAH installation to RAMDISK ?

Post by toTOW »

You could also reuse a spare HDD ... FAH doesn't use it much and drive performance doesn't matter (much, an USB stick is bad for this for instance).
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