FlashFire XP 32Bit (0.9f) - Another developing version

[MichaeL]

Love this prog!

..FlashFire says FlasFire when hovering over system tray icon.

[RejZoR]

Is this project dead? It's hasn't moved anywhere for ages...

[Az7]

Fantastic project! :]
Please keep up the good work !..

[GUEST1234]

Hi,
I have found a oddity with Flashfire...

What I have done:
Copy a lot of GB from one USB HDD to another USB HDD...

On which System:
Acer Aspire one 110 with internal 8 GB SSD and an internal USB-Stick (internal USB connector)

Oddity:
Flashfire catch the USB-HDD Copy transfer and caches it too additonal to the file transfer of the internal SSD
The Tray icon shows around 3/4 red parts of the "fuel bar"
Cache runs empty when coping is finished (target HDD is still moving the head and the actvity led flashes until the flashfire cache is empty.

QUESTION:
Is there any setting where I can select the drives/Drive Letter which sould be cached and not???

Thanks for the software...

[vrnued]

Hi,
I have found FlashFire when solving problems with my childrens netbook. It looks fine, but it is very soon to judge.

But I need to ask one question. It is about my other PC, a desktop one. There I use SSD (FAT32) for operating system (XP), together with a large SATA disk for data. It is faster than my previous Raptor.
It works for nearly two years and so far without problems. Do you mean, it is because of the fact, that my SSD has quite big (16MB) cache? Would I increase the performance of this SSD when using FlashFire?
Other words, is FlashFire useful also for SSD with 16MB cache?

Thanks for your help

[Marty82]

Hi,

not sure if there's still developement going on, but I though I provide my feedback nevertheless.

Installed 0.9f today, reboot and immediately a bluescreen (something with ffire.sys). Thankfully "last working configuration" enabled me to deinstall this version of flashfire.

Next I tried the 0.9c (last official version) and voila - it works! I ran a few quick tests (simple speedtest, starting a few apps) and it seems the write performance of small chunks has improved as expected. But larger chunks seem to have slowed down to a max of 40MB/s which is much less what I had before. Yes I know that was fixed with the 0.9f version, which sadly doesn't work on my notebook.

I will test the 0.9c Version over the next days/weeks and provide feeback again. But if it fixes the temporary freezing of Windows I will gladly use it and accept the performance loss with the larger files. The ssd is just my system drive, I keep the large data on a standard 7200rpm disk anyways.

Thanks for your effort and I hope you are continuing developement of flashfire in the near future.

[JH]

Yes, the dirt bit is in evidence here, causing chkdsk to run at every boot

[Camo Yoshi]

Just installed said version of FlashFire on my unmodified ASUS Eee PC 901... benchmarks using HD Tune 2.55:

Before:
4GB SSD, 512bytes:
Minimum: 1.0MB/sec
Maximum: 1.5MB/sec
Average: 1.5MB/sec
Access Time: 0.4ms
Burst Rate: 30.8MB/sec
CPU Usage: 15.4%

4GB SSD, 8KB:
Minimum: 10.4MB/sec
Maximum: 18.9MB/sec
Average: 16.6MB/sec
Access Time: 0.4ms
Burst Rate: 30.5MB/sec
CPU Usage: 11.7%

4GB SSD, 8MB:
Minimum: 32.6MB/sec
Maximum: 43.5MB/sec
Average: 42.3MB/sec
Access Time: 0.4ms
Burst Rate: 30.8MB/sec
CPU Usage: 1.6%

8GB SSD, 512bytes:
Minimum: 1.2MB/sec
Maximum: 1.5MB/sec
Average: 1.5MB/sec
Access Time: 0.5ms
Burst Rate: 27.7MB/sec
CPU Usage: 16.2%

8GB SSD, 8KB:
Minimum: 13.4MB/sec
Maximum: 18.5MB/sec
Average: 15.6MB/sec
Access Time: 0.5ms
Burst Rate: 27.7MB/sec
CPU Usage: 10.4%

8GB SSD, 8MB:
Minimum: 25.0MB/sec
Maximum: 40.0MB/sec
Average: 38.8MB/sec
Access Time: 0.5ms
Burst Rate: 27.7MB/sec
CPU Usage: 1.7MB/sec


After (during setup I answered YES):

4GB SSD, 512bytes:
Minimum: 1.3MB/sec
Maximum: 1.4MB/sec
Average: 1.4MB/sec
Access Time: 0.5ms
Burst Rate: 29.0MB/sec
CPU Usage: 16.6%

4GB SSD, 8KB:
Minimum: 14.2MB/sec
Maximum: 17.8MB/sec
Average: 15.6MB/sec
Access Time: 0.5ms
Burst Rate: 29.0MB/sec
CPU Usage: 12.0%

4GB SSD: 8MB:
Minimum: 40.6MB/sec
Maximum: 43.3MB/sec
Average: 42.3MB/sec
Access Time: 0.5ms
Burst Rate: 29.0MB/sec
CPU Usage: 2.0%

8GB SSD, 512bytes:
Minimum: 1.2MB/sec
Maximum: 1.5MB/sec
Average: 1.4MB/sec
Access Time: 0.4ms
Burst Rate: 27.6MB/sec
CPU Usage: 15.7%

8GB SSD, 8KB:
Minimum: 11.7MB/sec
Maximum: 18.3MB/sec
Average: 15.4MB/sec
Access Time: 0.4ms
Burst Rate: 27.4MB/sec
CPU Usage: 10.6%

8GB SSD, 8MB:
Minimum: 23.9MB/sec
Maximum: 39.9MB/sec
Average: 38.8MB/sec
Access Time: 0.4ms
Burst Rate: 27.6MB/sec
CPU Usage: 2.0%

No more stuttering! YAY! Thanks much!

[polocanada]

@ zartoven

Sorry, but is there still a possible benefit of using FlashFire with a SSD like Runcore?

The higher-end Runcore PCI-e PRO 4 comes with 128gb on board and dedicated 64MB cache on board. Not sure what speed, but it's on disk, so no almost no delay in data travel. I have the cache writing enabled through dskcache.exe both +p and +w.

@ zartto

I guess the answer is I have to try. But based on your results you posted, I don't expect any improvement from FlashFire except for the very small chunks of data uder 25k maybe..

Interesting woud be trying to disable the on-board cache to see if write speed is improved with FlashFire.