Hi Everyone,In a never ending battle to utilize FSX to its fullest, I purchased the following SSD, an Intel X25-M SATA 160GB SSD (SSDSA2MH160G2R5). I'm going to keep Windows 7 on my 10,000rpm Raptor and I'll place FSX and all my addons on the SSD.I know there are a few things that need to be done to setup my system to be SSD friendly, just not sure what they are. Guess I could use some help from someone whos already made the switch to SSD. I have an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard I know I have to change/config the bios, is the only bios change required is to set AHCI?Also what Windows 7 64bit services need to be turned off?.Think the steps needed are as follows.1. Change Bios to reflect AHCI2. Download and install the latest firmware for the SSD3. Partition and format the drive4. Install FSX and all my addonsThanks for the help

According to the hardware setup guide by NickN at:http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

RULES WHEN SETTING UP STORAGE:DO NOT PARTITION A DRIVE AND PLACE A OS OR FSX ON A PARTITION OTHER THAN THE FIRST PHYSICAL PARITION OF THE DRIVEALWAYS MAKE SURE THERE IS A MINIMUM OF 40-50% FREESPACE ON ANY PERFORMANCE DRIVE OR PARTITION (OS or FSX)NEVER PARTITION A RAID ARRAY - EVER!BEST SETUP IS TO PLACE FSX ON ITS OWN DEDICATED DRIVE WITH NO 2ND PARTITIONMYTH: NCQ and advanced BIOS SATA functions such as AHCI increase FSX performanceTRUTH: TRUE for network servers and workstations, UTTERLY FALSE for high performance drives such as the Rap, Vrap and gaming system use.

Although SSDs are not directly addressed in the guide, I would guess for HDD/SSD access AHCI still adds unnecessary steps for a single user PC running a single app such as FSX.I recommend familiarization with the rest of the text as well.Cheers,-jahman.

Hi Everyone,Well, this is what I've done so far, not sure if I'm missing anything.1. Setup the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 bios as AHCI2. Disabled Indexing3. Disabled Defragmentation4. Turned off Disk Defragmenter Schedule5. Disabled Superfetch6. Disabled Prefetch7. Firefox set to memory cache instead of disk cache8. Disabled System Restore9. Disabled Hibernate10. Enabled TRIMQuestion #1: Should I Enable or Disable Write Cache?Question #2: Should I disable the Page File? (I have 6 Gig of Ram)Question #3: Did I miss anything?Thanks

Disabling Superfetch is detrimental to performance except on very low-end hardware.

To be honest there isn't much point having an SSD if you don't put the OS on it, that's where you will get most benefit and if you only have FSX and its add-ons on the SSD then you don't really need to bother with all those tweaks anyway as Windows 7 wont let things like the defrag run on it anyway, it disables it on the SSD by default. The only thing I would turn off is system restore as its a pile of junk that doesn't work most of the time anyway, get a decent third party back up application like Norton Ghost 15 instead.

Hi Nick,When I did some reading I found the following article from windows in regards to Superfetch."Windows SuperFetch enables programs and files to load quickly.When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks

Hi Andy,I been reading where others have had sucess using an SSD for FSX and not for an OS. Bob Scott is such a person, this is a quote take from one of his posts." There's an important caveat for using an SSD as your main system drive--there are two technologies used in the currently available SSDs. The most widely used and inexpensive SSDs use multi-layer cell (MLC) flash memory, which has limits on the number of writes per cell before the memory begins to degrade (right now limits are around 10,000 writes per cell). The more expensive single-layer cell (SLC) technology does not have this issue. You can read either type of SSD billions of times without affecting it's useful life. MSFS is an application well-suited to an MLC SSD, because once installed, nearly all of the disk activity associated with running it involves reads of data like bgl and texture files...very little disk writing goes on. Contrast that with your OS, which keeps a cache file that is constantly being written, plus copious windows updates, system restore snapshots, etc. Use of an MLC-based SSD for the OS could prove problematic in some systems because the much heavier disk write load could prematurely wear out the drive.An SSD as an FS drive really excels in fast loading--on my 300GB Velociraptor, FSX loads in just under 3 min. Loading it from a mirror image on my SSD, it takes around 20 sec. Stutters and popping textures are almost nonexistent when run from the SSD--they weren't a huge issue on the Velociraptor, but there was some of that to deal with."He has seen an improvement over his 10,000rpm HDD using an SSD, I believe I will see the same results. I also find what he says about using an SSD for an OS drive very interesting, based on what I've read I would have to agree.Thanks

To be honest there isn't much point having an SSD if you don't put the OS on it, that's where you will get most benefit and if you only have FSX and its add-ons on the SSD then you don't really need to bother with all those tweaks anyway as Windows 7 wont let things like the defrag run on it anyway, it disables it on the SSD by default. The only thing I would turn off is system restore as its a pile of junk that doesn't work most of the time anyway, get a decent third party back up application like Norton Ghost 15 instead.

Nobody in the industry is absolutely sure how long an MLC based SSD is going to last but they can make an educated guess and so far they think that even with a 10,000 write life cycle drive the firmware wear levelling process will probably make an SSD last for about 10 years in an average desktop computer. Now they are saying that 10,000 writes is a minimum each cell can take before it fails so you can probably add 10 or 20% to that figure in actuality. Even if 10,000 writes is over optimistic 5 years of life for a drive is pretty good, you would probably be wanting to upgrade that drive in 5 years time anyway to whatever new technology is around at the time.

Hi Andy,The only thing I would be worried about is the degredation of performance between now and those five years, how long before this degredation starts and how bad will it be.

No one is absolutely sure how long an MLC based SSD is going to last but they can make an educated guess and so far they think that even with a 10,000 write life cycle drive the firmware wear levelling process will probably make an SSD last for about 10 years in an average desktop computer. Now they are saying that 10,000 writes is a minimum each cell can take before it fails so you can probably add 10 or 20% to that figure in actuality. Even if 10,000 writes is over optimistic 5 years of life for a drive is pretty good, you would probably be wanting to upgrade that drive in 5 years time anyway to whatever new technology is around at the time.

With TRIM enabled drives the degradation is speed is quite small in Windows 7. Even with drives that don't have a TRIM facility in its firmware it is quite easy to recover the lost speed, you just need to image the drive with some back up software then secure wipe it and format it then move the image back again, so a couple of hours work at most.I've had a drive without TRIM (Corsair X128, TRIM is supposed to be coming though in an update) since September of last year which has been in daily use in an average desktop environment and I have not noticed any degradation in speed, benchmarking it with ATTO has shown no reduction in speed either.Time for me to go, its getting late here in the UK now.

Hi,Ok, you talked me into it, I'm going to purchase a 40Gig SSD for my OS. Its the Intel SSDSA2MP040G2R5, it supports TRIM and its only $149.00 at J&R. I should have them both installed sometime today. Windows 7 takes up about 22Gig so that leaves just about half the drive empty.Guess I'll just keep my 10,000 rpm Raptor drives for storage or replace the drives in my main computer.Another question, Do I have to install the following items onto my SSD to see the benefits.1. Ground Environment X USA & Canada2. Ground Environment X Europe3. Real Environment XtremeThese are the install (change config/settings) programs, I don't think so, but I'm not sure.Thanks

No you can install those on the Raptor they will be fine there, as you say you only need to run those when making a change.

Hi,Well I have both SSD drives, I've installed the latest firmware on both drives and I am just starting to install windows 7 64bit on the 40Gig SSD. So far the installation is moving along fine, no problems.

When you reboot Windows 7 for the first time after it has finally finished installing you will have a big smile on your face I can guarantee it.

Hi,Well I have both SSD drives, I've installed the latest firmware on both drives and I am just starting to install windows 7 64bit on the 40Gig SSD. So far the installation is moving along fine, no problems.

Keep use posted. I am also interested in those ssd's.