Hi Rick,

 

You have been unlucky with Samsung haven't you? I'm not sure you can compare SSDs with digital cameras. Samsung is a respected name and sell a lot of products so the number of failures may simply be higher because of the sale volume. I run a weather station and upload data via a Samsung netbook which has been running non-stop for over 4 years.

 

You should have returned the drive to Aria and I'm sure they would have swapped it out. In fact I know they would because they have to under the terms of your warranty. Anyway, you have your precious photos now and I see you're using a HDD. Will you buy another SSD and if so, which one?

 

Perhaps that HDD can become a backup drive so you can recover data should the worst happen again.

Hi Ray

 

Would you believe it, Sod's Law being what it is, while in the USA two months ago, not knowing what fate awaited my original Samsung 840 PRO 256Gb SSD back here, I could not pass up on an exact same disk at Fry's as it was cheaper than what I paid for it in April at Aria. Now, you make some very valid points in your argument, and yes, I agree, on a pro rata basis based on a number of units shifted, a certain percentage must be factored in for failures. But I ask, why me? Why me twice with their products?

 

Another poster in that thread I pointed you to, recommended OCZ's Vertex SSDs, but having a rather dismal experience of OCZ's after-sales service that was only willing to offer me £20 for a 2x2Gb pair that originally cost me £100 when just one single 2GB RAM module was duff PLUS wanted me to return the other perfectly working module, I reckon not. To their credit, at least Samsung have arranged an RMA at their cost. So, bearing in mind the pro argument you have put across against my con argument, may stick with those SSDs. Fingers crossed, no more disasters.

Hi Rick,

 

I wish I could give you an answer as to why you've been so unlucky with technology products but I really haven't a clue. Sod's law is a reasonable enough deduction.

 

I can understand why you might feel a bit anti-SSD given your experiences but as they've been out a few years now reliability issues should have been ironed out. I Googled "most reliable SSD" and the results are interesting.

 

Someone said OCZ Vertex 4 but that was immediately knocked back by someone who said reliability was a big issue. In the discussion that followed Samsung, Crucial and Intel were recommended. The 840 for general use and the Pro for heavy use. The Samsung was mentioned by a few people which is encouraging for me.

 

Here's a link to a TomsHardware review. Have fun trying to work out what's best. http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/best-ssd-10-of-the-top-ssds-on-test-994095/3#articleContent

Hi Ray

 

Thanks for that.

 

I subscribe to 2 tech mags, Micro Mart and Custom PC, and when the two of them raved on about the 840 PRO, that's what made my mind up. I reckon, lightning will not strike twice, so when I get the replacement disk, I should be good to go. Besides, it now kick-starts me into building my new rig. Was just awaiting the necessary software. I may as well now base the new rig on the 2 x 840 PROs.

G'day Ray.

 

Throwing another iron into the fire.

 

Seagate has very recently released fourth generation 3.5" hybrid hard discs in 1 & 2Tb capacity. They haven't even been reviewed yet. These cached drives are much cheaper than SSD's, don't need alignment or lots of free space left and have no write-to limit. They remain, however. fragile and require defragging regularly. The cache is much better these days both in capacity and intelligence. They should load FSX/P3D/FS9/X10 almost as fast as an SSD ... much faster than a normal HDD. Back-ups will also be less expensive, particularly if you 'clone' the drive.

 

Perhaps you could check them out before spending your hard-earned?

Thanks for that heads-up, Appliance.

Hi Ray

 

Thanks for that.

 

I subscribe to 2 tech mags, Micro Mart and Custom PC, and when the two of them raved on about the 840 PRO, that's what made my mind up. I reckon, lightning will not strike twice, so when I get the replacement disk, I should be good to go. Besides, it now kick-starts me into building my new rig. Was just awaiting the necessary software. I may as well now base the new rig on the 2 x 840 PROs.

 

Hi Rick,

 

I've just checked PC Pro which I subscribe to and it gives the 840 Pro its highest award - A List. That is for the 256Gb version but I have no reason to doubt the 512 version will be any less capable. But one thing is very important here - usable space. Of the 512Gb size only 476Gb is available. Here's the proof from the Hexus review. http://img.hexus.net/v2/SSD/Samsung/840PRO/Capacityb.jpg

 

Are you buying 2 512Gb 840s Rick or just the one? And if two, how will you use them for the OS and FSX?

 

Glad to see you've come round with Samsung. Lightning may strike twice but it's highly unlikely.

G'day Ray.

 

Throwing another iron into the fire.

 

Seagate has very recently released fourth generation 3.5" hybrid hard discs in 1 & 2Tb capacity. They haven't even been reviewed yet. These cached drives are much cheaper than SSD's, don't need alignment or lots of free space left and have no write-to limit. They remain, however. fragile and require defragging regularly. The cache is much better these days both in capacity and intelligence. They should load FSX/P3D/FS9/X10 almost as fast as an SSD ... much faster than a normal HDD. Back-ups will also be less expensive, particularly if you 'clone' the drive.

 

Perhaps you could check them out before spending your hard-earned?

 

Hi Appliance,

 

I've never heard of these so googled them and found a couple of reviews.

 

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/internal-hard-drives/1300510/seagate-laptop-thin-sshd-500gb

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/storage/58853-seagate-laptop-thin-sshd-500gb/?page=4

 

They appear to sit between conventional HDs and SSDs in performance terms. I would certainly consider one for my secondary PC (running FS related programs) but for FSX I would still prefer the unmatched speed of a SSD. Thanks for bringing them to our attention. :smile:

Ray Proudfoot, on 04 Sept 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

Hi Rick,

 

I've just checked PC Pro which I subscribe to and it gives the 840 Pro its highest award - A List. That is for the 256Gb version but I have no reason to doubt the 512 version will be any less capable. But one thing is very important here - usable space. Of the 512Gb size only 476Gb is available. Here's the proof from the Hexus review. http://img.hexus.net/v2/SSD/Samsung/840PRO/Capacityb.jpg

 

Are you buying 2 512Gb 840s Rick or just the one? And if two, how will you use them for the OS and FSX?

 

Glad to see you've come round with Samsung. Lightning may strike twice but it's highly unlikely.

Hi Ray

 

It seems that your post is rather timely.

 

I have one Samsung 840 PRP 256Gb SSD en route to Samsung in Holland, a 2nd similar US-bought disk, and have just bought a Western Digital green 1Tb SATA hard drive from CEX for £40.

 

Thanks to Firefox 21 crashing every time I surf the Net for more than a minute or two when reverting to IE10 has been totally glitch-free, and I have no more hard drive space left on my Samsung SpinPoint 500Gb hard drive partitioned into 4 x 125Gb, and thus cannot install the just-downloaded PMDG 777, I reckon the hour has arrived to start afresh. I'll back up all my data to the 1Tb and then fit the US-bought 840 PRO 256Gb as my main OS and FSX drive. I'm hoping that I can store large scenery files on the 1Tb when it becomes free, but have read elsewhere that ORBX sceneries have to be on the same drive as the OS and FSX. Is that correct?

 

As regards lightning,,,,,,,,,,I'm a fair-minded person and like to be logical rather than taking a hard and fast stance.

 

 

so googled them and found a couple of reviews

 

Those are not what I was referring to Ray. I'm talking about 3.5" desktop versions which have yet to reviewed. I understand your preference however.

 

All the best.  :lol:

 

 

Of the 512Gb size only 476Gb is available. Here's the proof from the Hexus review.

 

If you decide to dedicate the entire 512Gb drive to ONLY OS+FSX+Addons you will have ample room for expansion really.  Currently on my 500Gb 840 I have installed:

 

OS + all important updates

FSX w/ SP2

FTX Australia 3 regions

FTX Central & Northern Rockies & PNW

KJAC/KPHX/KSFO/FSDT's Hawaii airports

PMDG NGX & J41, RA Turbine Duke, Super MD80 Pro, all w/ many liveries for all

FSPax

FSGenesis Hi Res terrain global

GEX + FTX

REX Essential Plus

Malwarebytes

I have yet to install FTX Global though the disk is here--that will add another 6-8Gb I assume--however GEX will be removed then anyway.

 

In any case I still have 337Gb as free on a 500Gb drive.  I will likely install the 777 and really that may be about it except for the odd livery or what have you.  If I used the drive for general computing that would be a totally different story but as I've said I think best bet on these is to dedicate the entire install on one drive and take the steps to minimize write operations, which in my setup now are almost nonexistent.

I have one Samsung 840 PRP 256Gb SSD en route to Samsung in Holland, a 2nd similar US-bought disk, and have just bought a Western Digital green 1Tb SATA hard drive from CEX for £40.

 

Thanks to Firefox 21 crashing every time I surf the Net for more than a minute or two when reverting to IE10 has been totally glitch-free, and I have no more hard drive space left on my Samsung SpinPoint 500Gb hard drive partitioned into 4 x 125Gb, and thus cannot install the just-downloaded PMDG 777, I reckon the hour has arrived to start afresh. I'll back up all my data to the 1Tb and then fit the US-bought 840 PRO 256Gb as my main OS and FSX drive. I'm hoping that I can store large scenery files on the 1Tb when it becomes free, but have read elsewhere that ORBX sceneries have to be on the same drive as the OS and FSX. Is that correct?

 

As regards lightning,,,,,,,,,,I'm a fair-minded person and like to be logical rather than taking a hard and fast stance.

 

 

Hi Rick,

 

Been to EGCC airport today for a bit of spotting. Might be the last before the weather turns bad.

 

I'm unsure about ORBX scenery requirements, sorry. Don't have any of that yet. That's another topic! :biggrin:

 

So you're going to install Win7 and FSX on the same SSD and extra scenery on the 1Tb HDD. It will be interesting to see if there's any significant effect of doing that. Just bear in mind you don't have 256 available - only around 238.

 

I compared the 256 and 512 versions of the 8400 Pro. The 512 is exactly double the price of the 256. The total available space on a 256 is 238 and on the 512 it's 476. So there's no space or price gain by choosing a single 512 or two 256 drives. I'm going to have to chew over which is best assuming one is.

 

I have Firefox v23 which is fine on my laptop. My FS PC is only used for flying and occasional internet use. Do you have just the one PC or not?

Those are not what I was referring to Ray. I'm talking about 3.5" desktop versions which have yet to reviewed. I understand your preference however.

 

All the best.  :lol:

 

Ah, sorry about that. I am a stickler when it comes to buying. It has to have had a good review first so I'll leave braver people than me to buy it and assess its worth with FSX. :wink:

 

 

If you decide to dedicate the entire 512Gb drive to ONLY OS+FSX+Addons you will have ample room for expansion really.

I have yet to install FTX Global though the disk is here--that will add another 6-8Gb I assume--however GEX will be removed then anyway.

 

In any case I still have 337Gb as free on a 500Gb drive. I will likely install the 777 and really that may be about it except for the odd livery or what have you. If I used the drive for general computing that would be a totally different story but as I've said I think best bet on these is to dedicate the entire install on one drive and take the steps to minimize write operations, which in my setup now are almost nonexistent.

 

 

Plenty of available space as you say Noel. You will have seen my earlier post where there is no price or space gain to choosing 2 x 8400 Pro 128Gb drives or a single 512Gb one. I think I will stick to your suggestion of a 512Gb and put the pagefile on an HDD.

G'day Ray.

 

Throwing another iron into the fire.

 

Seagate has very recently released fourth generation 3.5" hybrid hard discs in 1 & 2Tb capacity. They haven't even been reviewed yet. These cached drives are much cheaper than SSD's, don't need alignment or lots of free space left and have no write-to limit. They remain, however. fragile and require defragging regularly. The cache is much better these days both in capacity and intelligence. They should load FSX/P3D/FS9/X10 almost as fast as an SSD ... much faster than a normal HDD. Back-ups will also be less expensive, particularly if you 'clone' the drive.

 

Perhaps you could check them out before spending your hard-earned?

I wouldn't have high hope for fast FSX load time on these hybrid drives. I can't find anything about any 4th generation Seagate drive, but the 3rd generation 1 & 2TB models that launched a few months ago still only have 8GB of solid state cache in them. That's enough to provide a speedy Windows launch + fast startup of many programs you use frequently. It won't apply to FSX thou.

 

I am currently having OS+FSX with most addons on a 160GB SSD. I also have a separate 1TB Velociraptor where I just have my photo scenery.

Previously I used the SSD for the photo scenery as well, but space restrictions made me get the Velociraptor. A few MSE states later and the used space on the Velociraptor is increasing quickly. And so is initial load time, and load time in general as well. I know for a fact that it would be even worse had I've used a regular 7200rpm drive.

It's seriously making me consider spending the money to get back to an all SSD setup for FSX again.

 

Unfortunately FSX can eat pretty much all hardware you throw at it. A small cache coupled with a large 7200rpm drive (an SSHD) will perform a lot more like a 7200rpm HDD than an SSD when it comes to FSX load times. However it won't make any difference when it comes to FPS.

 

 

Hi Rick,



Been to EGCC airport today for a bit of spotting. Might be the last before the weather turns bad.



I'm unsure about ORBX scenery requirements, sorry. Don't have any of that yet. That's another topic! :biggrin:



So you're going to install Win7 and FSX on the same SSD and extra scenery on the 1Tb HDD. It will be interesting to see if there's any significant effect of doing that. Just bear in mind you don't have 256 available - only around 238.



I compared the 256 and 512 versions of the 8400 Pro. The 512 is exactly double the price of the 256. The total available space on a 256 is 238 and on the 512 it's 476. So there's no space or price gain by choosing a single 512 or two 256 drives. I'm going to have to chew over which is best assuming one is.



I have Firefox v23 which is fine on my laptop. My FS PC is only used for flying and occasional internet use. Do you have just the one PC or not?

 

Hi Ray

 

Right now in the process of re-installing FSX Gold after the long, long process of backing-up, formatting, etc, etc, then installing the OS.

 

Yes, I was aware that Windows does not display the full drive space.

 

Have 2 laptops, both dead. One after loaning a Sony Vaio P4 to somebody who then promptly damaged the power input jack. Also have 3 de-commissioned desktops running older CPUs.

 

Reckon with 2x 840 SSDs, 1x1Tb+ 2x 500Gb hard drives, I should have plenty of capacity for the add-ons, and sceneries. Still would like to know if its absolutely a must that ORBX sceneries have to be on the same drive as FSX.

 

Ah, well, back to the grindstone re-installing this and that. Midnight oil will be burning late! Luckily RTE have good late night music.

Hi Rick,

 

The lights will be burning late tonight! :smile:

 

You didn't mention any other functioning PCs - either laptops or desktops. if you run everything on a single PC why don't you get one of your old desktops running? With a WideFS licence you can run a weather program and other FS related stuff on that and free up resources on your main PC.

 

I've done this for years. In fact I have another desktop and this laptop running supporting software. It will make things better in FS even if it doesn't increase frame rates. Things should be smoother and of course you don't have to minimise FS to access other software.

 

My 8 year-old Pentium 4 has a 128Mb FX5700 card that is fine with Project Magenta Boeing suite plus other bits and pieces. My 6 year-old laptop runs ActiveSky 6.5 and FS Flight Keeper. It's worth considering.