Saving space on my SSD hard disk

[Lmaire 38]

In order to save space, could i cut and paste all aircraft manuals from my SSD (from the FSX folder) to my second HDD. Would it cause problem with FSX? Thanks.

[TheDanger 182]

No it wouldn't cause any problems unless an application opened them directly.

 

Why would you save space? Do you have gigs of manuals?

[Lmaire 38]

No it wouldn't cause any problems unless an application opened them directly.

 

Why would you save space? Do you have gigs of manuals?

 

I still have enough space for now but just in case of. Sure that i won't save a lot only with the manuals but a few megs here and there and you can save maybe 0.5gig

[simbio 56]

You can save space with addon scenery to redirect with scenery.cfg and with Airplanes folder that you can redirect via fsx.cfg

"SimObjectPaths.0=SimObjects\Airplanes"

[cptawsom 19]

...and with Airplanes folder that you can redirect via fsx.cfg

"SimObjectPaths.0=SimObjects\Airplanes"

 

And what happens with advanced aircraft addons like PMDG for example?

 

What if they have fixed paths (relative to the main FSX directory), in their code?

[Jcannon 13]

FSX doesnt really perform any better on an SSD compared to a 10000rpm drive.

 

Unless you got loads of money and have multiple SSDs, leave the SSD as a operating system drive and install everything else to another drive.

[

WD velociraptors arent very expensive these days and hold upto 600gb of data.

 

Saying that, SSDs have come down in price by alot.

[GeorgeT93 1]

And what happens with advanced aircraft addons like PMDG for example?

 

What if they have fixed paths (relative to the main FSX directory), in their code?

 

Could always use a directory junction. Then no paths need to be changed in cfg files or anywhere else. The junction is invisible to the software, and acts as if the data is located in its original location. Just a thought, as I personally use junctions with games installed through Steam, so the ones that see little to no benefit from being on the SSD are moved over to a mechanical drive, and junctions to the moved folders are placed in my steamapps folder.

[cptawsom 19]

Could always use a directory junction. Then no paths need to be changed in cfg files or anywhere else. The junction is invisible to the software, and acts as if the data is located in its original location. Just a thought, as I personally use junctions with games installed through Steam, so the ones that see little to no benefit from being on the SSD are moved over to a mechanical drive, and junctions to the moved folders are placed in my steamapps folder.

 

Being a long-time Linux user, I completely trust UNIX filesystem symlinks.

 

But in Windows, I don't know if junctions do work, and if they are reliable.

[Boeing or not going 578]

FSX doesnt really perform any better on an SSD compared to a 10000rpm drive.

 

Unless you got loads of money and have multiple SSDs, leave the SSD as a operating system drive and install everything else to another drive.

[

WD velociraptors arent very expensive these days and hold upto 600gb of data.

 

Saying that, SSDs have come down in price by alot.

 

and do you have any testing proof of this?

[Jcannon 13]

and do you have any testing proof of this?

 

Lets just go with a big No.

 

Believing is only ever seeing. I have had FSX installed on 5400, 7200, 10000rpm and a 120gb SSD.

 

I only recently bought the 10krpm drive and before that I had run FSX on the same machine on a 260gb 7200rpm drive with OS on the SSD and vice versa.

 

The only difference is the load times, clearly fsx will load any flight much quicker on the SSD than any non-raid drive, but with fsx on the SSD and the OS on the mechanical, the windows load time is roughly 1:30-2 minutes long.

 

With fsx on the 10000rpm drive it takes less that 50 seconds to load the default flight from the free flight menu, from boot with the OS on the SSD, it takes about 1:40 to load to the free flight screen.

 

If I happened to be a fighterjet nut who only loves flying around at 800kts at 600ft above Orbx scenery, then perhaps the SSD would be the better option. But being the tubeliner/ga rank amature that I am, 250kts or less, below 10000ft and with the need of programs running the back ground such as a weather engine, flight planner, acars software, internet browsers and frankly Football manager 2012 for those long haul flights. The way I have it set up is just fine.

 

For the record, I have also done long haul flights in fsx with the above programs open and running barring football manager but running Arma2 Combined Operations on multiplayer with 30 squadmates battling against AI and still getting 50fps on the battlefield and 25-30 fps on approach to heathrow with shed loads of AI.

 

This of course, isnt proof, because I havent given you any pudding, but it works very very well for me.

[GeorgeT93 1]

Being a long-time Linux user, I completely trust UNIX filesystem symlinks.

 

But in Windows, I don't know if junctions do work, and if they are reliable.

 

I hear you, but junctions are nothing new in Windows (been around since at least Win2k). As I said, I was just tossing that out as a suggestion, but I do use them, and they do work. As for reliability, I've been using them with Steam-based games for over a year now, and never had one 'break' or stop working for me. All my Steam games get properly updated through Steam, including the ones that have been moved and have junctions pointing to their new locations, so Steam still 'sees' the moved stuff as still being in the original locations. I'd agree that with most stuff, editing the fsx.cfg to point to the new location is the best and proper way to do it, however as you stated, with some PMDG stuff, that may not work too well, if at all. In that situation, a junction may be the solution so that the software would respect the 'hard paths' even if the data was moved to a different location. :)

[scott967 62]

I use junctions and also have moved my fsx install to a second ssd which I have volume mounted into my (emptied) main fsx folder. use this little app for them:

http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm

 

scott s.

.

[greggerm 312]

and do you have any testing proof of this?

 

Empirical proof, no - but it is something which I experimented with some time ago as well.

 

An SSD noticeably improved loading times no doubt... but it did nothing once I was in the simulation itself. In the sim, textures were not loading any faster, blurries were not held off for any greater length of time, and overall smoothness/stutter was not improved.

 

I quickly moved FSX and all it's associated data back to a traditional hard drive and left my SSD for system/program use only, and I feel as though I'm making optimal use of my storage assets. To each their own, but I would also recommend not "wasting" SSD space with flight sim items unless pregame loading times are a major pet peeve for you. There's nothing WRONG with using FSX on an SSD if you have the space to spare, but as a caveat to any potential buyers out there, I wouldn't get one solely to put MSFS on.

 

Food for thought,

-Greg