But then I noticed it was a TLC SSD.  As in triple layer cell... meaning shorter lifespan than the more pricey MLC format.

 

I knew their prices seemed too good to be true....  Still the Evo benches extraordinarily well even against its big brother the 840 Pro.

 

Anyone have any lifespan problems with TLC drives?  I know SSD's are still sort of new I've had a Mushkin SATA II for about 3 years (It must be TLC but I'm not sure... edit: looks like it is an MLC no wonder it's still kickin)

Tech Report is currently doing a long term test of various SSD's, and the predecessor to the EVO (the 840 Series) is included .  Their test drive started throwing errors after 100TB of writes, and after 500TB of writes it has lost about 2.5GB of its overprovisioning.  Keep in mind that on average only 5% of what we do with a storage drive is writes.  Almost everything is reads... and reads don't bring wear to an SSD.  Given the performance of the EVO drives, their cost offers some pretty nice value.

 

http://techreport.com/review/25889/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-500tb-update

What does over provisioning mean? I'll read that article too.

 

And what if I put Xplane10 and BF4 (along with FSX of course) on it? Wouldn't it be writing often enough? I'd be installing scenery and addons, and bf4 gets updated semi constantly.

I'm running an 840 EVO 500GB drive. One way to counter your concern is to use another larger HDD drive for data. For example I use a 1.5TB HDD which does not cost much these days and this drive handles most of the work - for example, I have assigned the default download folder to this drive, not the SSD. Same with temp folders - for example the one used when NVidia driver updates are carried out - rather extract files to the HDD, not the SSD.

 

May not make a huge difference but it will help to keep the SSD clean and limit unnecessary writes.

 

Unless you are constantly installing and uninstalling software, videos etc to the SSD, your SSD will likely have a longer useful lifespan than your MB or graphics card, TLC or not.

Notwithstanding the good advice tendered above Ryan if you are still unconvinced check out the latest SanDisk X210 SSD's which are built to OEM and server reliability specs.

A TLC drive is just fine for FS use--FSX's usage pattern most closely matches a "write once, read mostly" scenario.  You have to consider just how much data 100TB is in some context...at 2 MB/s, you'd have to download continuously, 24/7 for about 20 straight months to get there.  100TB of writes is really not a meaningful usage metric for any FS installation I know of.  If you used the drive for FS only, you probably wouldn't hit 100TB of writes in your lifetime.

 

Regards

I plan on putting Battlefield 4, XP10 and FSX on it.  I even considered Win7 but that might be pushing it... I'll probably format my current SSD (sata2) and put the OS on that, then keep my 1TB plugging along for my other applications.

Hey Ryan,

 

I actually have 2 Samsung EVO drives one of which is exclusively for FSX. I was a little concerned with SSD drives life spans but as it's already been mentioned above, you would need to run that drive 24x7 for a LONG time before you would see a degradation. I have a separate HD for BF4, BF3, CoD Ghosts and my other "games" and on that drive I put all my user related data so the hit to my SSD's has been reduced even further.

 

Buy in confidence that you'll be upgrading your SSD before it fails you :-)

 

M

I could keep BF4 on my HDD but loading takes quite a long time.... sometimes 3-5 minutes on a first load of the day.  Today in our "NEED IT NOW!" society it's a little brutal.  But in the big scheme of things its nothing.  If I don't put BF4 on, XP10 WILL be going on - same type of longish delay.

Hey Ryan. I hear you! BF4 can be dog slow to load. I got a SSHD and it's been great. Here's a link to the one I picked up in case you're interested:

 

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX47668

 

M

Thanks. But I either plan on making the full plunge for speed, or not hehe.

I'm running my OS on a Samsung 840 Evo 120GB.

 

What I've done to reduce writes on the drive is changing the temporary folders to a separate HDD.

 

This is how it's done, I'm quoting from: http://www.simforums.com/forums/the-fsx-computer-system-the-bible-by-nickn_topic46211.html

 

 

 

SPECIAL SECTION FOR SSD WINDOWS DRIVES:

 

SSD DRIVES AND MOVING THE TEMP FILES WILL CUT DOWN ON SSD FILE WRITES FAR MORE THAN ANY OTHER TWEAK. THIS IS ACTUALLY MORE BENEFICIAL TO A SSD LIFE AND PERFORMANCE OVER TIME THAN ANY PAGE FILE CHANGE OR OTHER SUCH TWEAKS.

 

 

This will move ALL the Windows temp files, all the installed program temp files as well as the INTERNET cache, and, the CD/DVD burner temp burn directory,....  to a location off the SSD

 

 

First you need to flush your current TEMP files and clean the drive..

 

Open the W7_Optimize directory on your desktop.

 

With all programs closed, run the program TFC.exe. When it launches click the START button and allow it to complete. When finished it will close certain programs running in the tray and may launch a windows explorer window, simply close any windows that open and then reboot the system.

 

 

Next, choose a DEAD STORAGE mechanical drive for this and use the ROOT directory to create the new directory location

 

 

 

A. Create two directories on your dead storage mechanical drive ROOT:

 

<DRIVE>:USERTEMP

<DRIVE>:WINTEMP

 

 

B. Go to START - in the box type: Advanced System and above click on: Advanced System Settings. Click the ADVANCED TAB

 

 

 

C. Click the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES button. In the top box you will see 2 temp file locations: TEMP and TMP. Highlight EACH and click EDIT and then add the exact path to the new temp directories in the VARIABLE VALUE box., 

 

EXAMPLE: for MY system I use the F drive 2TB mechanical backup therefore MY lines will appear like this for both the TEMP and TMP entries:

 

 

F:\USERTEMP

 

 

 

D. Click OK and close the box. CONFIRM the paths.

 

 

 

E. In the same ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES box go down to the SYSTEM VARIABLES section, scroll down the list and find the entries TMP and TEMP. Highlight EACH and click EDIT and then add the exact path to the new temp directories in the VARIABLE VALUE box.

 

EXAMPLE: for MY system I use the F drive 2TB mechanical backup therefore MY lines will appear like this for both the TEMP and TMP entries:

 

 

F:\WINTEMP

 

 

 

F. Click OK and close the box. CONFIRM the path for both.

 

 

G. DONE! Close the System Properties box

 

 

 

I have 3 drives in my FSX system. C: SSD is operating system, D: SSD is FSX/DCS, and E: 2.5" 500G spindle drive is for downloads/backups.

 

Most importantly, I have moved the operating system paging file from C: to E:. This greatly reduces the amount of writes to the C: SSD, correspondingly increasing its lifespan.

 

My D: SSD is a Samsung EVO.

If I move my hard drives around on the various sata ports will that mess up my drive lettering and or software?

 

I'm thinking I'll need to move the slower older drives to all SATA 2 ports so I don't bottleneck the new sata 3.

If I move my hard drives around on the various sata ports will that mess up my drive lettering and or software?

 

Different SATA ports shouldn't be that big of deal. I'm not a professional IT guy though.  But you can reassign drive letters quite easily.  Windows 7 Start>In search bar type "Disk Management". From there just right click whatever hard drive you want and select change drive letter and path.

 

As for the hard drives. I just got the 840Evo (Was on sale at Bestbuy).  Love it so far.  I think even if you put all those games on your that drive your still looking at YEARS of good use before it goes bad man. By that time we'll be in the 4TB range of SSD :-)