So TL:DR backstory a long time ago I wanted a drive I could put games on but not actually inside my PC. It started out HDD and morphed into a four 1TB SSD in a stripe of mirrors config.
I kept my steam library on the SSD array for quite a while without any problems. Recently I had bought a 2TB SSD on sale which would easily fit my whole Steam library with room to spare. I wanted to test it head to head with a flash array iSCSI target to see how viable using iSCSI for games would be. The results are pretty interesting (to me). I did a benchmark with CDM and timed the loading of two games I play often.
Benchmark with crystal disk mark 6 (SSD on left, iSCSI on right)
Game load times from the time I clicked “Play” until I’m in the character ready to play. This includes clicking the “accept and proceed” as well as the “continue” in Satisfactory and the “New Game” in Subnautica. Each test performed twice with the fastest results posted here.
ISCSI
Satisfactory: 41.48 seconds
Subnautica (original): 27.08 seconds
SSD
Satifactory: 33.63 seconds
Subnautica (original): 23.95 seconds
Even with human error poking the start/stop button on screen as well as the mouse clicks, the difference is there. Even though there are some neat benefits of having TrueNAS manage the disks, I’m still impressed how well the iSCSI target actually does with all the massive overhead. I’m guessing the loading time difference comes down to random read speeds…because sequential reads and writes are insanely different.
I guess it wouldn’t be a proper experiment unless I had the hardware used if someone as insane as I am wanted to recreate it for some reason…
Gaming PC
Ryzen 7 1700X (OC 3.6)
16GB 2400
Windows 10
Network (Not using jumbo packets)
PC: Intel 2p x520
Switch: Aruba S2500 24p
Server: HP 534FLR
Connections: Intel E10GSFPSR SFP+ modules connected by OM3
Server
E5-2620 v3
64GB 2133P
four Samsung 870 EVO SSDs in stripe of mirrors
TrueNAS 12 (U2) autotune was enabled
Test SSD: Crucial MX500 2TB
If anyone has anything to add, feel free. This was just a fun experiment, I don’t know if I will keep steam on an SSDs or not.