Hi all and Happy New Year,Long time reader, first time poster. I just ordered the modest system listed below in my signature after reading about every post in this forum. This is my first build, so I'm a bit of a newbie in this area. I'm comfortable with everything except the SSD. My orginal plan was to put the OS on it, but I did some further digging after ordering and have found people saying that with smaller drives, it is pretty complicated to move all of the user data files, modify the page file limits, ect, ect. I probably would have been better off with 80gb or 120gb so I wouldn't have to worry about those issues, but I'm on a pretty tight budget. The way I see it, and since this is a brand new build, I have three options:Option 1: Stick with the orginal plan and put the OS on the SSD and modify / move whatever it takes to make the 60gb work.Option 2: Put only FSX on the SSD (my current FSX install is less than 30 GB and probably won't grow at this point). Whenever Flight comes out, I'd have to get another one.Option 3: Take advantage of the Z68 chipset and use the SSD as a cache drive. This seems to make the most sense, but I'm not sure what the feedback is on this with respect to FSX performance? Also, is the actual drive ok for this?Which of these options would be the best for running FSX, and everything else for that matter? Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated.Thanks.

Or install your OS on your SSD ( I recommend this) and put FSX on your HDD. Whatever you choose I recommend installing your OS on your SSD. You are going to get the most benefit out of it. I just recently installed windows on my ssd along with fsx and all my games and its amazing. I don't see any improvements in FPS (as far as I can tell) in games/fsx but the loading/snappiness of it is AMAZING.

Edited January 2, 201214 yr by thefsxflyer

I would put the OS on SSD (~20GB for clean Win7 Pro). Also keep there add-ons which have plenty of small files (RC4 for example).

OS on the SSD is the way to go. I don't think you can do SSD caching anyway, because I think it's limited to 40GB drives or less.

Option 4: Ditch the SSD and don't worry about the XX seconds you save booting into your OS.

Option 4: Ditch the SSD and don't worry about the XX seconds you save booting into your OS.

True. Option 4.5 Ditch the ssd save up and find a good deal on a >240gb drive.

I'm seriously contemplating if to obtain Samsung 830 256GB for my FSX.Reasons:1) annoyed by high loading times, as I like tweaking, waiting is a bit of pain2) I would generally like faster flight loading, I know there is almost no performance gain in flight, yet I have seen faster texture response in FSX3) my FSX is growing, I have now about 180GB, which is over the size of my WD, so I'm keeping big files, like mesh, photoscenery on my other drive, linked to FSX and I would like yet again to have one driveThere are about 330 reasons why not to pull the trigger. As my dear would say "it's working, ain't it..."...And definitely no SSD for OS. Do I need Firefox or Outlook opening "faster"? I might move OS to my WD if I get an SSD to get a bit faster boot times.

Edited January 2, 201214 yr by Kosta

Seems like the putting the OS on the SSD is the most popular method. I would entertain option 4, but I'm not sure about Newegg's return policy. Is anybody here actually using SSD's as a cache instead?? I understand the limit is 64gb and why wouldn't you want to make use of the newer technology?

Seems like the putting the OS on the SSD is the most popular method. I would entertain option 4, but I'm not sure about Newegg's return policy. Is anybody here actually using SSD's as a cache instead?? I understand the limit is 64gb and why wouldn't you want to make use of the newer technology?

I think newegg has a restocking fee if there is nothing wrong. I am actually very glad I bought my SSD. It was clearly my bottleneck in my system. Stuff just loads instantly but before with my hdd I could end up waiting for the hdd to find what I was looking for.People put a negative image on ssds but once you experience it, you'll change your mind.Here is the neweggs return policy http://www.newegg.com/HelpInfo/ReturnPolicy.aspx#44

Edited January 3, 201214 yr by thefsxflyer

People put a negative image on ssds but once you experience it, you'll change your mind.

This is spot on. If you use your computer for nothing but FSX, I might agree that an SSD is pointless. Personally, FSX only makes up 5 or 10 percent of my computer use. I use my computer for school and home office tasks more than anything. If you install your OS and your program files on the SSD, your system will feel extremely snappy.Yes, they're expensive, but you really can't bash SSD's until you've tried one.

Edited January 3, 201214 yr by cmeeks

I always say it: I had my SSD experience. I loved the short load times but buyer's remorse got the best of me. It really just is not worth it IMO. I'll continue bashing the technology until it doesn't begrudge me to buy it.

Yes, they're expensive, but you really can't bash SSD's until you've tried one.

Oh yes, I tried one - I got one off Amazon, I think it was Intel's X25, and it was good, yea. But the pricetag for what it brought wasn't quite worth it. I tested FSX, it was a wow effect, I put Windows on it, and it was snappy, but again... is it worth 330€ for FSX and 200€ for Windows? I dunno...

I'd say just install Windows on the SSD since you would hardly have any room for a page file on the SSD if you have Windows and FSX installed on it. You really should have gone to at least an 80GB SSD if you want to have FSX (without many addons) and Windows installed on it with room for the page file. I noticed that when I had lots of addon aircraft installed, on an SSD it was much faster loading the aircraft menu than my 1TB 7200 rpm HHD. Loading a flight however didn't feel much faster to me on the SSD than my 1TB 7200 rpm and it didn't seem speed up texture sharpening in my eyes, a CPU upgrade made a bigger difference for me on this stuff. Loading Windows 7 made a big difference for me with an SSD however. I'd say just keep the SSD for Windows and get at least a 320 GB 7200 rpm for FSX and the upcoming Flight game that you said you wanted to get.

I'd say just install Windows on the SSD since you would hardly have any room for a page file on the SSD if you have Windows and FSX installed on it. You really should have gone to at least an 80GB SSD if you want to have FSX (without many addons) and Windows installed on it with room for the page file. I noticed that when I had lots of addon aircraft installed, on an SSD it was much faster loading the aircraft menu than my 1TB 7200 rpm HHD. Loading a flight however didn't feel much faster to me on the SSD than my 1TB 7200 rpm and it didn't seem speed up texture sharpening in my eyes, a CPU upgrade made a bigger difference for me on this stuff. Loading Windows 7 made a big difference for me with an SSD however. I'd say just keep the SSD for Windows and get at least a 320 GB 7200 rpm for FSX and the upcoming Flight game that you said you wanted to get.

I say at least 320GB because anything smaller is not much cheaper and I assume you will want to have room for other stuff as well such as a a storage partition.

I always say it: I had my SSD experience. I loved the short load times but buyer's remorse got the best of me. It really just is not worth it IMO. I'll continue bashing the technology until it doesn't begrudge me to buy it.

Well I had the money to upgrade to an SSD. Nothing else in my PC really needs upgrading but I had the money that I wanted to put to use instead of just leaving my money unused. I had the money again to upgrade to a 240GB SSD because I might buy XplaneX and didn't have enough space on my 160GB SSD for adding XplaneX. If I was tight on money, then I most likey would not have upgraded to an SSD as I don't think it was worth it for FSX for the price as the only thing that my SSD loaded much faster was the aircraft menu when I have lots of addon aircraft installed in FSX. I did notice a little faster loading of flights in FSX with an SSD but not faster enough to make to worth the price in my opinion.