Storing games on SSD in FreeNAS; what is more important bandwidth or latency

[Benoire]

Hi

I've been wondering this for a little while now. My network is configured at 1GBe speeds, so max throughput is in the region of 110mb/s from the server.

For playing games that are stored in the NAS on an SSD, what is going to make a difference... The access times of the SSD or the bandwidth? I'm presuming that the faster access times are going to be the more important factor and that it is unlikely that a game will stream data greater than 100mb/s in to the game?

Any one done this? I'm currently using my standard mechanical WD Reds for this purpose and its fine, for the most part its like the game was running from the actual machine but I'm wondering whether moving the games to an SSD on the network will improve general loading and streaming performance or if moving to a 10gbe network would be better, as that would then unlock the full SSD bandwidth.

Any thoughts on the subject are appreciated.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[depasseg]

For playing games that are stored in the NAS...

To answer your question, a little more infor would be helpful. What is the workload profile for the game? Meaning when you start, does a large file(s) get transferred to a local machine in order to play, or is the a continuous set of network activity to the NAS as the game is going on?

Another way to think of it- if your network traffic graphs are pegged at 1Gbps, an SSD isn't going to do much. If there is a lot of little bursty bits of traffic, then an SSD might improve things.

Oh, and you mixed up B and b. B=Byte=~10 bits(b) So I'm assuming you have a 1GbE connection. and are seeing 110 MBytes (=1Gbps) transfers (which is full speed).

And 10GbE is always better, but then your pool will be the limiting factor (unless you are using SSD's).

 

[SweetAndLow]

I run my games off my nas and I see a large file transfers at the start that maxes out my connection. Then I see smaller reads on load screens that don't max out the connection. I don't think having ssd's in your pool will improve performance, when it comes to loading games. I also have multiple vdevs so my pool might perform better with random io.

 

[nightshade00013]

You would actually be better off putting an SSD in your gaming computer than on the NAS as the limiting factor will be the 1Gb ethernet connection. An SSD will easily fill the connection during the load plus you are adding the overhead and latency of the Ethernet and transfer protocol. You have to figure that the maximum transfer you can ever achieve is just over 100 MB/s an SSD in your computer can easily transfer at three times that. As far as SSD's being faster than your pool it depends on your pool size. If you have 5 drives in a single raidZ1 vdev, 6 in a raidZ2 or 7 in a raidZ3 you will likely be in the same speed range as a single SSD. Each drive will increase the speed of the vDev by around 80MB/s (rough number and it depends on the drive and size as well as RPM.) The major advantage of running the games from the FreeNAS comes in that you can reduce the chance of data loss when it is run from a pool that has redundancy. If you insert a single SSD to store the games you are losing that unless you are making snapshots to the pool.

If you run 10Gb ethernet on both ends this will be a different story however if you are running either multiple spindles, multiple vDev's or multiple SSD's. You would still generally be better off running raid 10 in your computer however with four SSD's for speed but you would then be relying on a hardware raid controller unless you have some way to run ZFS on the local system.

Another way around this would be to virtualize. Run FreeNAS on the local system as a virtualized environment alongside of a windows environment. You would gain ZFS reliability and pool speed along with being able to have a direct in machine connection but you would not likely want to have transfers outside of said system while you are gaming since the system CPU would be doing double duty. Said system would still be best with ECC ram and you would need to set a portion of that aside for your gaming system. You would probably need a minimum of 16GB of ram (8 for FreeNAS and whatever is left over for the windows system minus the virtualization overhead) and more would be better. Pass through a graphics card to the windows system and use one drive plus a portion for the virtualization OS and windows and pass the rest through to FreeNAS. You could potentially run the gaming OS from a VM stored on the pool and loaded with the virtualization software as well. You should have access equal to 10GB or faster connections between both FreeNAS and the gaming OS (assuming windows) low latency transfers with no physical networking hardware handling other traffic.

 

[Fastfat1597]

I have played games form my nas which can send gigabit to my gaming pc, the one game i tried was Rocket league. loading the game it took about as long as a normal hhd, but definitely slower then an ssd. I didnt notice any weird happening in-game. loading the different levels while doing the online multipayer was a little slower, due probably to latency, because it didn't max connection.

For nas specs would be 3 wd reds 2tb, 16 gb ram, and a core i5 2500k running at stock on an intel mobo.(random fact, it also boots xp to play really old games). my gaming pc is 5820k at 4.4 ghz, 16gb ram, and gtx 970.

 

[nightshade00013]

I have played games form my nas which can send gigabit to my gaming pc, the one game i tried was Rocket league. loading the game it took about as long as a normal hhd, but definitely slower then an ssd. I didnt notice any weird happening in-game. loading the different levels while doing the online multipayer was a little slower, due probably to latency, because it didn't max connection.

For nas specs would be 3 wd reds 2tb, 16 gb ram, and a core i5 2500k running at stock on an intel mobo.(random fact, it also boots xp to play really old games). my gaming pc is 5820k at 4.4 ghz, 16gb ram, and gtx 970.

Will it work yes there was never doubt in that, but with an SSD able to transfer between 200 to 550 MB/s well over 119MB/s which is right around the maximum for transfers over 1Gbps ethernet connection it's not going to be great. If you have a choice between a NAS (with any type of pool Multiple HDD or SSD) or a local SSD the local SSD will win every time unless you have 10Gbps networking (1.25 GB/s)

BTW you may want to read the recommended build specs section as the i5 you are using does not support ECC which can cause data corruption with ZFS.

 

[Fastfat1597]

Will it work yes there was never doubt in that, but with an SSD able to transfer between 200 to 550 MB/s well over 119MB/s which is right around the maximum for transfers over 1Gbps ethernet connection it's not going to be great. If you have a choice between a NAS (with any type of pool Multiple HDD or SSD) or a local SSD the local SSD will win every time unless you have 10Gbps networking (1.25 GB/s)

completely agreed about what you are saying. His question was if any has done it, and if speed or latency mattered more. IMHO, large games need speed, small games latency, but always better to store on local drive, which in a small case could become difficult.

BTW you may want to read the recommended build specs section as the i5 you are using does not support ECC which can cause data corruption with ZFS.

i know, but nas isn't used for important data, mostly for transferring things from PC to PC,and backups about once a week,(which is a data dump, which doesn't stay in ram, or am i mistaken?(serious question)) since it is faster then putting USB in PC and transferring it that way.

also didn't have ecc ram or mobo, or cpu laying around, all these parts, except hhds, were currently laying around unused.