any benefit installing to solid state drive ?

[peterchambers 0]

Do any of you technical bods out there know if installing Flight onto an SSD would offer any improvement over a mechanical drive ?

[Cub1 0]

Do any of you technical bods out there know if installing Flight onto an SSD would offer any improvement over a mechanical drive ?

Completely off topic I know, but your name is the same as mine !On topic - I would also like to know this as I have an SSD 225Gb, but have not installed Flight to it as I wasn't sure how much space it would eventually take up with all DLC etc.Kind regardsPeter Chambers (alias Cub 1)

[Murray_CHYZ 1]

As you already know, I'm sure, SSD drives are faster than mechanical drives. You could do a test comparison by installing Flight on an SSD, then a mechanical drive, and compare the results. You would "most likey" find a difference in speed... the SSD being faster. Ah,,, every "benchmark" package out there will show you that they are!The problem is, FASTER would probabaly be a "subjective" term in this case. For instance, is it "faster" enough to be worth the cost of the upgrade (and size limitation of) an SSD drive?OK, I will give you MY opinion based on the following. I have 2 x 1TB WD Black drives in Raid0, I have 1 x WD 300GB VelociRaptor, and I have 2 x 256GB Crucial SSD (one for W764/Flight and one for FSX). Flight (and FSX) don't "APPEAR" to run any differently on any of these drives. I still have the odd stutter, I still have Autogen popping up at times, etc. The only thing I find that is "somewhat" faster is the amount of time it takes to "load" the OS and large files.I personally don't think it's worth the expense to upgrade to an SSD drive... UNLESS you don't care about cost!Last year I paid (with tax and delivery) close to $1000.00 for my 2 SSDs. Was it worth it? I would have to say no!

Edited March 6, 2012 by Murray_CHYZ

[peterchambers 0]

Thank you Murray. I find that FSX runs much better - very smoothly - on an SSD drive on my PC. I have all the addons under the sun, though. I was wondering if I should make way for for Flight on my small raid array of SSDs. Am finding Flight rather addictive !!!Hello Peter Chambers. My wife's family is from Shropshire and we are great fans of the area - not least because it is the least populated county in England.Best wishes, Peter Chambers

[Murray_CHYZ 1]

Hi Peter!As you can see, I struggled with my answer as I find that opinions vary greatly when it comes to things like this. So, here's how I usually gage this kind of subject... of something being faster/better for running something. I follow the internet to get a "feel" for what's what. I read alot about the benifit of faster CPUs and GPUs when it comes to FSX/FLIGHT... I hear very little about the benifits of SSDs verses Mecahnical drives being benificial. But I do hear lots of questions about it! See what I mean? When in comes to Flight, it appears that the GPU makes a difference. In the past, with FSX, the GPU was supposed to NOT make a difference becasue it was "quote" CPU bound. But, that did not stop anyone from buying the FASTEST GPU they could find... some even have thier GPUs in SLI mode (I do)... even though the second GPU is not being accessed.See what I mean. This stuff is subjective to the individual person. We (me included) just, "want to believe"! <grin>NO OFFENSE by the way. I am NOT saying that you are wrong about seeing better performance with your setup.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Murray_CHYZ

[EagleSkinner 36]

SSDs have the problem of cost vs capacity - I have installed a "compromise" - take a look at OCZ Revo drive hybrid. That's a mobo mounted 1TB hard-disk for capacity with a 100GB SSD buffer.It "memorises" the most used files after a while and stores these in SSD. An impressive compromise