Hi guys,

 

Before I write, I have searched the forums, read relevant posts, this is a fine tune thread just about SSD's.

 

Now,

 

The popular SSD comes at either 60GB Or 120GB.

 

I currently run 2 HDD [one WD 620 black] and an older samsung. [both 620GB]

 

Now, I like having FSX on a standalone drive. I am thinking of buying a SSD when upgrading some components.

 

Where do I put it?

 

1) Shall I buy a smaller one, [30gb?] and put just the Windows 7 on just that drive?

2) Does FSX really need a SSD for itself?

3) Whats the best do you think, In theory I could buy multiple SSD's.

 

I do game, but not overlly seriously, so I still have a lot of space, I have loads of music, and video files, but not video editing.

 

 

Cheers!

If you're going to buy an SSD I would use it for fsx. It's the one loading massive batches of textures & such. Just remember never to defrag a solid state drive.

 

I have win7 & my other programs on a 320 velociraptor & fsx+addons on a 120 SSD I scavenged from my MacBook when it got too small.

I would use it for windows as you can always add another ssd for flight simming at a later date with out the need to do a fresh install of everything as you can copy the flight sim folder to the new ssd and just remap the drive letter so all the registry links work with no issues.

 

Im running Windows off an ssd and flight sim on a wd raptor but i got me old ssd working and there is a smoothness boost with fsx now, its not perfect but but its good as im not frame locking at the moment. its better then what i had with the raptor.

 

Plus having windows boot up in less than 15 seconds is pretty cool :)

I may buy two, one for windows and music videos

 

one for FSX.

 

And use my WD for games

You'll see a huge change in the responsiveness of the system by putting Windows and your most used programs (web browser, email client etc) on an SSD. With FSX it's going to improve your load times when starting a flight and the streaming in of new BGLs/textures while flying. It will not improve the framerate.

 

I don't see a valid technical reason to have Windows and FSX on separate SSDs assuming you do have the space to put them both on the same drive. That's done with mechanical drives due to the speed gains from having FSX and Windows both alone on the outer edge of their respective discs (higher angular momentum etc) and to make defrag runs easier since there's nothing else on the drive. Neither of those things are a concern with an SSD.

Just remember never to defrag a solid state drive.

 

If you are using Windows 7 it should automatically discover it as an SSD and automatically disable all automatic defragging functions. Also if windows is installed on that SSD it will disable Superfetch (windows' funny way of making itself faster).

 

As for everything else.. I would personally suggest you put both windows and FSX on an SSD if your SSD is large enough, I would suggest 240GB. I personally have a 120GB SSD and it fits both just fine. I do have a 750GB mechanical drive installed, i use this for addons mainly like REX. If you install REX on a mechanical drive then it will place all its textures on that drive and only copy over whats needed which definately helps save space on the SSD.

 

If you are getting a smaller SSD then I would suggest windows go on it for overall system speed. As it has been said before FSX itself will NOT run faster if placed on an SSD, it will load faster and the textures will load faster. However I have found in the past that as you fly a mechanical drive is more then fast enough to load textures. If you do alot of camera switching and notice a "blank" aircraft, an SSD will help with that, but not really mission critical.

 

As for your music and video files, leave them all on a mechanical drive as they are very space consuming.

 

I hope that helps with your question.

I price mysefl rich, having windows 7 64 bit on one ssd, and fsx and all with it on another. :-)

 

Personally I would put fsx on a ssd first, but I depands on how often you let fsx load its scenery / change your location etc.

 

Maikel Rozemeijer.

Windows doesn't disabled Superfetch with an SSD - that's a bogus tweak too. An SSD is nowhere near as fast as main system RAM...

You should buy two SSD's. 1 60GB for Windows, 1 120GB for FSX. It of course depends on how much add-on stuff you have. But for me, 120 GB for FSX would be more than enough. I've currently used around 60 GB of FSX space and I got quite a lot of scenery.

 

What I recommend, DO NOT buy an SSD with the Sandforce controller. They are very unreliable. Many people will probably try to recommend OCZ Vertex 2 or Vertex 3, but no, I've heard many horror stories about them suddenly ceasing to operate after only several weeks. The OCZ Vertex 4 seems to be good though. As long as it's an SSD with a controller other than a Sandforce controller (like Crucial), you'll have no problems. My Crucial SSD is great, very reliable, and very fast.

 

After I upgraded to an SSD, I did not notice any performance increase. However, I do not have any stutters anymore related to HDD access. However, it won't do anything to microstuttering or hitching, you'll always have a little bit of that.

Windows doesn't disabled Superfetch with an SSD - that's a bogus tweak too. An SSD is nowhere near as fast as main system RAM...

 

Hey Ryan, I could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure somewhere in the MSDN, its states that in Windows 7 only, if it is determined that your running an SSD with sufficient speed then superfetch, boot prefetching, application launch prefetching, ReadyBoost and ReadDrive will all be disabled.

 

Ohh well, I could be wrong..

Ohh well, I could be wrong..

 

you are not

You should buy two SSD's. 1 60GB for Windows, 1 120GB for FSX. It of course depends on how much add-on stuff you have. But for me, 120 GB for FSX would be more than enough. I've currently used around 60 GB of FSX space and I got quite a lot of scenery.

 

What I recommend, DO NOT buy an SSD with the Sandforce controller. They are very unreliable. Many people will probably try to recommend OCZ Vertex 2 or Vertex 3, but no, I've heard many horror stories about them suddenly ceasing to operate after only several weeks. The OCZ Vertex 4 seems to be good though. As long as it's an SSD with a controller other than a Sandforce controller (like Crucial), you'll have no problems. My Crucial SSD is great, very reliable, and very fast.

 

After I upgraded to an SSD, I did not notice any performance increase. However, I do not have any stutters anymore related to HDD access. However, it won't do anything to microstuttering or hitching, you'll always have a little bit of that.

 

What else have you got on the windows 60GB?

What else have you got on the windows 60GB?

 

What do you mean? "Got" in terms of what? If I have to give advice on a ~60 GB Windows SSD, get the Crucial M4 64 GB SATA3. And I recommend getting a Crucial M4 128 GB for FSX. However, you can also get an OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB/256GB, they seem to be good so far, cuz they don't have that horrible and unreliable Sandforce controller. So DO NOT get a Vertex 2 or 3, or any other Sandforce SSDs.

 

If you mean what programms I got on my Windows SSD. Well, I only got on storage drive, which is my Crucial M4 128 GB. I got Windows on there obviously, and FSX with all it's add-ons, and games like F1 2011 and BF3. Only got around 10GB left lol. I'm gonna buy another one soon. :)

What do you mean? "Got" in terms of what? If I have to give advice on a ~60 GB Windows SSD, get the Crucial M4 64 GB SATA3. And I recommend getting a Crucial M4 128 GB for FSX. However, you can also get an OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB/256GB, they seem to be good so far, cuz they don't have that horrible and unreliable Sandforce controller. So DO NOT get a Vertex 2 or 3, or any other Sandforce SSDs.

 

If you mean what programms I got on my Windows SSD. Well, I only got on storage drive, which is my Crucial M4 128 GB. I got Windows on there obviously, and FSX with all it's add-ons, and games like F1 2011 and BF3. Only got around 10GB left lol. I'm gonna buy another one soon. :)

 

SATA III Sandforce (SF2281) is the one that was problematic. Vertex 2 have been pretty much rock solid from release. And SF-2281 issues seem to be already fixed

What do you mean? "Got" in terms of what? If I have to give advice on a ~60 GB Windows SSD, get the Crucial M4 64 GB SATA3. And I recommend getting a Crucial M4 128 GB for FSX. However, you can also get an OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB/256GB, they seem to be good so far, cuz they don't have that horrible and unreliable Sandforce controller. So DO NOT get a Vertex 2 or 3, or any other Sandforce SSDs.

 

If you mean what programms I got on my Windows SSD. Well, I only got on storage drive, which is my Crucial M4 128 GB. I got Windows on there obviously, and FSX with all it's add-ons, and games like F1 2011 and BF3. Only got around 10GB left lol. I'm gonna buy another one soon. :)

 

I mean, on the 60GB is that JUST windows, and thats it? Or have you got other things