I currently run a 150GB HDD as C:\ for normal O/S & boot drive activity. I use a second, 500GB HDD for all my gaming installs, including FSX. As I have added more FSX content scenery, weather, mesh etc I have noticed slower loading times and slower scenery/drawing times while flying. Will I have a better FSX experience if I replace the boot drive with an SSD and load FSX exclusively on a second SSD; including scenery, mesh, addon's etc? Does this even make any sense? I am considering getting 2 128GB SSD's for this project. If it does make sense, any recommendations on which SSD's to get and any configuration input would be greatly appreciated. I do plan to keep my current HDD's for other programs and storage. ThanksRick S

You can see the ones I use. They do an excellent job. Silent, of course; never need to be defragged; and make the loading of FSX very quick.

There is no doubt that programs will load quicker. Performance wise most people that have FSX an an SSD do not see any performance increase once the FSX has loaded. Some people do report a FPS performance increase and less stutters while in game.

The SSD will decrease loading time. That's why I love mine. From Win7 desktop, to starting FSX, I can load with LOD 6.5 into my default flight in about 25 seconds.

Still looking for more input? I have read some things about needing a separate controller? What is Trim, in pc vernacular that is? Would really appreciate some specific guidance and recommendations. ThanksRick S.

I'm not using a separate controller... from my limited understanding they are for the power users... Trim is basically a method to keep the drive clean. It means less writes to the SSD over time with means longer life of the SSD... technical explanation can be found here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM

You do not need a separate controller. What you do need is a controller on your motherboard that can be set to AHCI because only AHCI supports the trim function. At this the Intel sata mother board controllers support trim. The Marvell sata motherboard controllers may or may not support trim, it depends on the Marvell BIOS, F/W and drivers that are loaded. Intel vs. Marvell is a whole tread in itself and is debated a lot. Mech HD's run best in a home application on IDE, SSD's run best in a home application on AHCI. You have to set the sata controller to IDE or AHCI. Now if you have your OS on a mech HD and FSX on a SSD then you really need to put each on a separate controller so one can be set to IDE and one set to AHCI. Now you need to get out the manual that came with your motherboard and see how many separate sata controllers you have, then decide what drive to put on what controller, then what to set that controller to, IDE or AHCI. None of the currently available PCI-E 2.0 addon sata controllers support trim. If you want to use one of these then you need to decide if the garbage collection function that comes with your SSD will perform the clean up function so you do not need to use the trim function.