I've just fitted SSD's to hold my FS-X installation and thought I would share the experience.

 

First of all I put in one 240G SSD to hold my FS-X system then later installed a second SSD in to take the OS and other software. The final figures after installing both SSD's are in bold.

 

Starting the program to appearance of the free flight menu: was 45 secs, with one SSD 22 secs, with 2xSSD : 26 secs

Loading the aircraft choice screen from the free flight menu: was 25 secs, with one SSD 13 secs, with 2xSSD : 11 secs

Loading a flight from the free flight menu to sitting in the cockpit: was 4 minutes 30 secs, with one SSD 3 minutes, with 2xSSD : 1minute 24 secs

Certainly a big improvement in load to cockpit. Also I've noticed that the time to switch views seems to have dramatically improved and is now virtually instantaneous. The horrid pauses I use to get while textures for aircraft loaded when I switched views seem to have gone too

I wasn't expecting a frame-rate improvement so I didn't note what I had before - maybe 30fps peak, unlimited - but I do seem to have got a jump to around 50fps (if I leave it unlimited). Throttle back to 26fps and its beautifully smooth.

The other heads-up on this was that cloning the C drive was really easy with the Kingston kit and the Acronis software.

First of all I put in one 240G SSD to hold my FS-X system then later installed a second SSD in to take the OS and other software.

 

Sorry John, I'm not following your scheme.   So you are comparing putting OS on one drive along w/ FSX on the same drive, versus OS & FSX each on their own SSD?

 

 

The other heads-up on this was that cloning the C drive was really easy with the Kingston kit and the Acronis software.

 

This suggests OS & sim on one drive, yes?

Want faster response?

 

Dump the OS and critical root files for the OS and programs on your C:\ SSD.

Put your USER files and your MS Office/Skype/Adobe programs on a D:\ fast mechanical drive

Put ALL of FSX and it's supporting files/programs/add-ons on the E:\SSD 

 

Ssssssmokin'...

Kattz - this is just about what I have got now and is the bold set of figures above.

 

Noel - I started off with just one SSD which I put my FS-X on and is the first set of SSD figures. Then I added a second SSD about a month later which is the bold set of figures.

 

 

Noel - I started off with just one SSD which I put my FS-X on and is the first set of SSD figures. Then I added a second SSD about a month later which is the bold set of figures.

 

So you are comparing putting OS on one drive along w/ FSX on the same drive, versus OS & FSX each on their own SSD?

So you are comparing putting OS on one drive along w/ FSX on the same drive, versus OS & FSX each on their own SSD?

Yepp, that's it.

 

John

Yepp, that's it.

 

John

I've been promoting the all on one fast SSD approach, despite the conventional wisdom being aligned w/ your findings.  Plus, something seems off w/ those number from my experience.   I don't know what plane you loaded and that for sure matters, so for my test I'll just load.  Also, in the FREE FLIGHT menu I already have a payware plane loaded, the QW757, which is more complex than default planes.  So this is w/ OS & FSX (& P3DV2.1) on the same SSD:

• Starting the program to appearance of the free flight menu:  16sec
• Loading the aircraft choice screen from the free flight menu: 2sec -- I have ALOT of add-on aircraft too, and have 'Show all variations' checked.
• Loading a flight from the free flight menu to sitting in the cockpit:  31sec -- this is into KSAN, using FTX Global scenery which is a slower load than default scenery.

OK, well apparently we have very different configurations/machines as you can see here the one-SSD approach is very robust as it has always seemed to me which is why I've promoted this approach.  I am using a Samsung 840 500Gb SATA III drive on a suitable 6gb/sec port.  What had me puzzled John was this comment you made:

 

The other heads-up on this was that cloning the C drive was really easy with the Kingston kit and the Acronis software.

 

This has been one of the rationales for using the single drive approach:  it enables me to make a 100% complete OS/sim(s) drive that can be cloned for immediate plug & play replacement in the event of a failure.  I keep a cloned copy of the complete single drive on an old SATA HDD.  

 

Plus, and I really recommend this:  my OS/sim drive has absolutely no other software beyond default Win 7 programs.  Since I don't use this drive for anything except simming, and I don't even surf the web on this boot up, therefore no need to have any bloatware, no antivirus/malware, etc.  Makes for a very fast boot up, lean sim environment.  I used my Win 7 disk to set up another HDD in the box for everything except FS, and get to it by using the BIOS F8 boot choice screen, so each drive is completely unaware of the other one.  When I download software off the web it is saved in a folder that can be accessed when I boot into the FS SSD for installation.  This approach also keeps the number of write cycles on the SSD to a bare minimum, which keeps the SSD healthier.  You may know this but if not, it's not a good idea to defrag your SSDs as it does little to nothing for performance and wears out the drive prematurely.

 

Noel

 

 

So this is w/ OS & FSX (& P3DV2.1) on the same SSD:

Starting the program to appearance of the free flight menu: 16sec
Loading the aircraft choice screen from the free flight menu: 2sec -- I have ALOT of add-on aircraft too, and have 'Show all variations' checked.
Loading a flight from the free flight menu to sitting in the cockpit: 31sec -- this is into KSAN, using FTX Global scenery which is a slower load than default scenery.

 

OK this looks like a target to aim for....there's a big variation is in the "load aircraft choice" screen and I'm not sure why there should be such a difference there. With the "free-flight  to sitting in the cockpit" I'm going to a relatively small freeware GA field sitting on top of FTX-UK  but I've also timed it virtually the same to one of the FTX GA fields (Shoreham) and a bigger FTX regional field (Cardiff) and got roughly the same numbers (i.e.1 min 25 secs.) Aircraft in all cases is a simple, freeware, single engine prop (Auster J1 Autocrat by Dave Garwood) .

 

I have got other stuff on the OS drive which I could move off to a spinning SATA drive, I'll check around some more and see what I can do to improve. I probably should have gone for a 500G SSD in retrospect which would have made the whole exercise easier.

 

Thanks for the top on defrag - yes, I knew that but I wouldn't be surprised if others don't.

Thanks for the top on defrag - yes, I knew that but I wouldn't be surprised if others don't.

 

You can also disable the hibernate state file to minimize write operations as desired, and free up substantial SSD drive space.  Here is an article about how and why to do this:

 

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tr-dojo/delete-hiberfilsys-by-disabling-windows-hibernate-function/

 

Yes, I was very happy to see how this works and really it's very nice to have an entire file solution on one drive making backup/clone a single drive affair which in my mind is preferred over backing up separate drives at the same time else they are out of sync for a restore.