Hello - new to the forums and looking for some feedback/advice on what would be a good setup for FSX on my new build. My computer is based on an I5-3570K (going through OC process now), 16GB Ram, GTX 660Ti, Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (OS), WD 1TB 7200 64mb cache (data). I'm currently working my way through the 'Software and Hardware Guide to FSX' posted on this site, and various other posts (most of which include feedback from Nick N, who seems incredibly reputable!).

 

My options/questions are the following:

 

1) Knowing FSX should be installed on a separate drive, should I install on my 1TB data (D:\) drive, which also includes about 150Gb of music, pictures, docs, etc?

 

2) This is still a build I'm setting up, so should I partition my 1TB drive with, say, 250GB as a first partition (mapped to D:\) for FSX, and have all my other data/storage on the remainder of the drive (mapped to E:\)? The way I understand it, being the first partition, there would be less distance to for the drive to travel.

 

3) Forget all the above, and buy one more drive for FSX. In doing so, I am leaning towards another SSD (probably 128GB Samsung 840 Pro, or 250GB Samsung 840 non pro), or a 7200 HDD. If going for the HDD, does it matter whether I have 16mb, 32mb, or 64mb of cache for this drive. I have no problem with 64mb cache other than I'll end up with a 500GB or another 1TB drive which will barely be used and feels wasteful!

 

Also, for option 3, as I understand it an SSD offers smaller improvements to FSX (load times and textures), and no noticeable improvement to frames. As such, for price reasons, a regular HDD might be my preference.

 

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Ideally I'd like option 2 to work, but wanted to validate partitioning a drive won't have unknown adverse affects on the FSX setup. Thank you for your feedback.

I'm currently set up as your Option 3 and that works out really well for me. If you can afford the other SSD then thats what I'd recommend. Then you don't have to worry about partitions either.

 

One SSD for OS/Programs. A separate SSD for FSX and AddOns. All your FSX stuff is in one handy spot and you don't have to worry about defragging that drive or anything. Also, if you want to back up your FSX stuff you can just image that drive and have a nice snapshot-in-time of your FSX and all of your goodies.

 

The 1TB drive works nice for bulk storage, pictures, music, videos, and as a backup drive (Of course, you'd want to have another set of backups on a drive outside of your machine).

Thanks for the feedback. For your FSX drive, are you running an SSD or HDD? Also, if HDD did you consider cache?

Actually....D) All of the above

 

My FSX drive is an SSD and my OS/Programs drive is a separate SSD. However I also used a small SSD (64 GB) to cache my platter drive (HDD) just to experiment. My motherboard is an ASUS board that has the caching built in through the ASUS Suite utilities. I really didn't need to cache the HDD but I wanted to try it just to compare. I'm sure other folks will rave about how great it is but based on the benchmarks and the real world performance I've seen....I really didn't think the SSD caching of the HDD was worth the additional money and effort. I don't pretend to understand the way the cache works but supposedly it looks at frequently used data, caches that to the SSD, and thus improves speed. However, due to me using the HDD as a 'storage' drive...nothing there is really 'frequently' used which is probably why I don't see much in the way of bang-for-buck. If I could go back and do it again, I probably wouldn't have bothered. But I was curious

Thanks for the feedback. Given the favorable performance of the SSD since installation, I opted for a dedicated SSD for FSX. The overall performance (albeit negligible according to some reporst once flying), couple with a system geared for SSD's was the deciding factor. The prices still aren't great, but I figured 128gb should suffice for now. I'll be a casual FSX'r at most; game installation and scenary (England, and possibly Orbx Global once released). I estimated at most my FSX install will reach 45 to 65 gb; more than enough headroom on 128gb. Should I ever get close or run out, well, a great excuse for an upgrade at that point (probably take my 256gb OS drive and replace that with a new toy).