How to set article cache to more than 4G (or is there a better way)?
Posted: February 1st, 2019, 6:13 am
Hi everybody,
I have quite a fast internet connection (Gigabit speed) that gives me approx. 110 MB/s in SABnzbd (latest stable version on latest macOS 10.14.3, iMac late 2015 with i5 CPU and 24 GB RAM). I have set the article cache to 4G which I believe is maximum (higher inputs still end up with just 4G being used as shown in status window). All is fine when queuing up downloads with file sizes of 2-5 GB each. Trouble starts when I download large files ( > about 25 GB).
Then, the download starts at about 110 MB/s and stays there for a couple of minutes, all cool. Status windows shows that only a couple of hundred megabytes of the article cache are being used, so I believe that downloading, decoding, assembling and unpacking (yes, direct unpacking is enabled) are working just fine - for the first couple of minutes. Then, the article cache usage slowly but steadily rises (why?) until it maxes out at 4G (at this point, usually about 25 GB have been downloaded). Of course from that point on, download speed drops to something like 30-40 MB/s or lower and my machine becomes more and more unresponsive as it is busy with disk caching (I think).
I have found out that disabling direct unpacking actually doesn't improve the situation as a whole. It delays the point at which the article cache maxes out, sure, but on the other hand, I lose the advantage of already having a big part of my download unpacked when downloading finishes which is becoming more beneficial the larger the downloaded file is.
So my questions are:
1. Why is everything running fine (with nice and low article cache usage) for the first few minutes before things start to go sideways? What is changing after these first few minutes?
2. As I have 24 GB RAM installed in my machine, is there any way to increase the article cache size to more than 4G (I'd like to try 8G)?
3. What's the recommended number of connections with my setup? I don't know how many are actually set at the moment (as I am currently at work), but is there a general hint/formula?
Thanks a lot for your help in advance!
I have quite a fast internet connection (Gigabit speed) that gives me approx. 110 MB/s in SABnzbd (latest stable version on latest macOS 10.14.3, iMac late 2015 with i5 CPU and 24 GB RAM). I have set the article cache to 4G which I believe is maximum (higher inputs still end up with just 4G being used as shown in status window). All is fine when queuing up downloads with file sizes of 2-5 GB each. Trouble starts when I download large files ( > about 25 GB).
Then, the download starts at about 110 MB/s and stays there for a couple of minutes, all cool. Status windows shows that only a couple of hundred megabytes of the article cache are being used, so I believe that downloading, decoding, assembling and unpacking (yes, direct unpacking is enabled) are working just fine - for the first couple of minutes. Then, the article cache usage slowly but steadily rises (why?) until it maxes out at 4G (at this point, usually about 25 GB have been downloaded). Of course from that point on, download speed drops to something like 30-40 MB/s or lower and my machine becomes more and more unresponsive as it is busy with disk caching (I think).
I have found out that disabling direct unpacking actually doesn't improve the situation as a whole. It delays the point at which the article cache maxes out, sure, but on the other hand, I lose the advantage of already having a big part of my download unpacked when downloading finishes which is becoming more beneficial the larger the downloaded file is.
So my questions are:
1. Why is everything running fine (with nice and low article cache usage) for the first few minutes before things start to go sideways? What is changing after these first few minutes?
2. As I have 24 GB RAM installed in my machine, is there any way to increase the article cache size to more than 4G (I'd like to try 8G)?
3. What's the recommended number of connections with my setup? I don't know how many are actually set at the moment (as I am currently at work), but is there a general hint/formula?
Thanks a lot for your help in advance!