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Lenny
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| Posted: April 09 2015 at 09:26 | IP Logged
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Has anyone run their powerhome server on on a SSD? I'm considering
switching mine over. I wasn't sure if anyone else has done this or not.
The constant db activity is really my only concern. SSDs do have a
limited number of time the bits can flip although these days its years of
continuous writing. Just curious if anyone has made the switch. Aside
from my NAS/SAN my PH server is the last one with mech disk.
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gg102
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| Posted: April 09 2015 at 09:55 | IP Logged
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I have thought about this, but like you, I think that the constant database hits would wear out the device quickly.
I am now thinking about using a RAM disk. I am thinking that I would start PH with a .BAT that would first copy the database to the RAM disk, then start PH. then, in PH maybe once an hour, I'd make a backup of the database to a "real" disk.
Currently I don't have enough RAM to do this, but since RAM is cheap these days, and the systems are stable enough, I might try this in a week - after I get another ton of memory installed. Thankfully, Win-7 64bit can address enough memory to make this possible.
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dhoward
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| Posted: April 09 2015 at 10:19 | IP Logged
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Lenny,
I still run my system on a mechanical disk as well. There would certainly be no reason why you couldnt run PowerHome on an SSD drive but like you, I would be concerned about the constant database activity.
Like gg suggests, I would think a RAM drive would be the best way to handle this situation. I would think a 500MB RAM disk should be plenty with a scheduled backup of the database to the SSD.
Another option would be to minimize your eventlog output. In the Setup|Logs section, you could uncheck all or most of the logging and this will GREATLY cut down on the database activity. You also mention you have a NAS drive, you could put your phlogs.db (if you're on 2.1.5) and even your pwrhome.db files on the NAS and just have them run from there. You would just need to update the pwrhome.ini file to point to the new location of these files.
Hope this helps,
Dave.
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jpcurcio
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| Posted: April 09 2015 at 10:58 | IP Logged
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I've been running on an SSD for over five years with no issues. I built a dedicated system optimized for low power usage using a fit-pc2 machine, and the lower power usage of the SSD was one of the benefits.
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Lenny
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| Posted: April 09 2015 at 12:04 | IP Logged
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Thanks for the feedback guys. I have always appreciated the support in
this forum.
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TonyNo
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| Posted: April 09 2015 at 18:01 | IP Logged
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I've been running one for a little bit now. Nice and snappy!
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gg102
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| Posted: April 15 2015 at 19:07 | IP Logged
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So, I installed 8GB of RAM in my machine. I made a RAM disk, and copied both the PH database and the log database over to the RAM disk. I pointed the .ini file to the new RAM disk and ran PH, and ALL IS GOOD!
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dhoward
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| Posted: April 19 2015 at 20:05 | IP Logged
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gg,
Sounds great! Do you occasionally save off a copy of
your pwrhome.db file to the SSD so that you don't lose
any changes (something like a timed event every hour
doing a ph_backupdb function)?
Dave.
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gg102
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| Posted: April 19 2015 at 20:44 | IP Logged
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Hi Dave,
Thanks for your message. To respond to your question, um, well, sort of... Let me explain...
In my start_up routine, I look at the current time, and setup various items accordingly. For those items that are not time dependent, I "ping around" to determine what to do. So, for me, it's not important to save the state of the machine when I shutdown. The start_up macro is lengthy, but in the "times before" it was necessary; now it's not as important, but since it's there.......
As to making program changes, yes. I have a macro "backup_database" that macro copies the database back to a mechanical drive, copies the database to the NAS, copies the database to the backup PH machine, and then copies all the graphics and other stuff. I "play" that macro when I make changes.
Nightly, in my "New_Day" macro, I call the "Backup_Database" macro, so even if I forget, the system will eventually make the copy back to a mechanical drive.
Surprisingly, even though I have a LOT of macros, and my app is rather complex, my database is surprisingly small. My database is about 10MB, and my log database, which I trim every day, is about 33MB. For what I am running, I'm surprised. So the RAM drive I setup is only 100MB and it's about 1/2 empty, or 1/2 full if you're left handed.
I don't know if PH is operating any quicker, but I'm sure it's less stressful on the hard drive. Reducing stress is always a good thing!
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BeachBum
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| Posted: April 20 2015 at 10:28 | IP Logged
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For what it's worth I've been running PH on 4 systems using ssd each with a different version of Windows with no problem. I also run my shared usb device on my router with a ssd that I use for phfilemon.
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PowerHome Messageboard : PowerHome General
Topic: Solid State Disk (SSD)
