Plotting on leftover hdds

hey there, its a fact that when you run multiple plotting on hdds connected via sata its significantly slower than doing just one at a time… I got 16 hours first test with only 1 hdd plotting (using 10threads and 20gb ram was a mistake i think :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:) but nvm ,I’m also experimenting with hdd / ssd as a 2nd temp locations

I want to ask would external usb adapters for hdds help with multi hdd plotting times? Thanks

Yeah, only do one plot at a time per spinner, otherwise you’ll thrash.

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Yeah - this might be doing the opposite of what you expect. I saw in some threads here or reddit where people see worse performance when they bump up the threads/RAM etc, so defaults or a bit higher RAM like 6 GB should be better.

For the external USB adapters, make sure they are USB 3 and as Dan said, don’t do multiple plots on same disk as that will be much slower.

I saw worse performance going from 2t/(default) to 2t/8gb ram and that REALLY surprised me! I assumed it was an error or one off but I hope not, since I figured adding memory could do no harm at worst!

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I tried 2. Super roughly I was thinking my times increased from 16h to 24h per plot. It sounds like a worthy optimization, but I don’t think it is. You need to stagger instead of looping, which is more complicated to deal with, and having 2x the plots needing a solid 24h to finish all adds up to a lot of lost time if you have to stop plotting or if something goes wrong.

TLDR; I tried more than one and agree that 1 plot per spinner makes more sense.

Edit: Looking at my logs I was actually doing about 14h per plot on a slower machine with the same disks, so I think it would come really close to doubling the plot time. It’s not worth doing more than 1 plot per spinner based on my attempt(s).

yes i’m now using max 4 threads per plot as I have read users reported slower times with more, but with ram I’m still experimenting… right now I’m running 8500mb vs 3408mb on 4 threads (found it in Optimizing Plotters in Windows post…) still don’t know if you should add more ram per thread or it depends just on a plot…

for the hdd part, guys I wasn’t asking about running multiple plots on one HDD but about running multiple hdds used as temporary directories, connected to one system and if the different methods of connecting them could help with the times

On the hdd part - thanks for clarifying - on the earlier post it sounded the other way around :slight_smile:

Yes you should be able to use multiple HDD with 1 plot per HDD. If you have them in enclosures make sure they are USB 3 connecting to USB 3, otherwise consider plugging them on SATA.

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I’ve been plotting on standard HDDs and it works pretty well.

Note: try to have your destination drive off the spinning plotting disk. Or transfer it off after plotting. Otherwise, if you try to copy it off while plotting, it slows the whole thing way down.

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I tried plotting on HDD drives and I stumbled upon a problem that I cannot resolve. When I ran 1 plot on hdd as temp drive, it finished in ~13h. Then I added second hdd drive to be temp drive also. I ran one plot on each hdd drive, thinking that times would be same because there is one plot per hdd, no parallel plots on one hdd. But times got bad, it took ~25h for each plot to finish. Each plot was ran with 4 threads and 4GB and another test with 2 threads and 4GB ram. Processor was utilized about 30%, there was enough free ram, etc. I tried different sata ports for those hdd drives, but it was the same. Final plot file was written to third HDD that is dedicated for plots.

Does anyone know why this happens or did anyone had similar experience while temp plotting on hdd?