I've already made up my mind: For now I'm not going with SSD for FSX. Oh well I'll have to wait the minute load hehe! But I am going to buy a smaller (64GB) SSD for the OS only. I figure it's worth the small added cost to boot into Windows lightning fast :PI'm thinking about going with this Seagate Baracuda 2TB for my main FSX installation, addon scenery/planes, plus applications:http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/687578-REG/Seagate_S320005N1A1ASRK_2TB_Barracuda_XT_3_5.htmlI know I know, not the usual Newegg link but BH has it for 20 bucks cheaper (plus I use BH for all my photo stuff)A few questions...1)Does the 64mb cache actually help, or is it just a gimmick to entice noob gamers like me?2)Why is it so pricey? I've seen other 2TB models for half the price.

No doubt - I love my SSD. But if you use this machine for more than FSX, get a cheaper 1TB drive and put the savings toward a 90GB or 120GB SSD. 60GB gets filled up rather quickly. Perhaps a 1TB WD Caviar Black or Samsung Spinpoint F3. I'm not really sure what affect the 64MB cache has, but I think 32MB is already considered somewhat large even by todays standards.

1)Does the 64mb cache actually help, or is it just a gimmick to entice noob gamers like me?

Depends on the pattern of your disk access: The cache is used by NCQ-Native Command-Queing "a technology designed to increase performance of SATA hard disks under certain conditions by allowing the individual hard disk to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed. This can reduce the amount of unnecessary drive head movement, resulting in increased performance (and slightly decreased wear of the drive) for workloads where multiple simultaneous read/write requests are outstanding, most often occurring in server-type applications." Bravo Wikipedia!Cheers,- jahman.

Ok, as an example I looked at your drive. 32mb cache, 1TB Samsung F3. It's sata 3GB/s. Is there any difference between the 3 and 6 that my proposed new motherboard would accept?$70-ish on newegg for the Spinpoint F3 1TB.$90 WD Caviar 64mb sata 6GB/s 1TB.Any difference? What exactly does the sata 6GB/sec do over the older 3?As far as storage, here's what I'll have in the new system36GB 10k raptor which houses my FSX and Acceleration installs (took it off the DVDs from day one, great time saver)250GB storage drive for photos/videos1TB (new) for FSX plus other software64GB SSD (new) for OSYou're saying 64GB isn't enough for just Win7? I understand it will grow with the additions of service packs etc but I can't think of how it would get that large... My current Win7 Ultimate is 16.1GB (only checked the c:/windows folder) EDIT: Hmmm, it looks like I need to account for page file, which normally likes to be same size as my physical RAM (proposed 8GB).... ARGH. It's basically twice the price to go to a 120GB SSD. ARGGGHHH!!!

60 Gb SSD is OK for Windows 7 64 IMO...Set the pagefile to 3072/3072 and disable hibernate.I have 22.5 Gb free even with SP1, REX OD (a whopping 13.1 Gb), ASE etc. installed, so you should be okay I think.

60 Gb SSD is OK for Windows 7 64 IMO...Set the pagefile to 3072/3072 and disable hibernate.I have 22.5 Gb free even with SP1, REX OD (a whopping 13.1 Gb), ASE etc. installed, so you should be okay I think.

And you can move the pagefile to another drive...What is more difficult to manage are the many applications that like tobe installed on the C: drive like Google Earth etc etc