Best SSD for Xplane?

[GodAtum 69]

• 500GB Samsung 840 EVO - £148
• 512GB Corsair Force LX - £150
• 512GB Samsung 850 PRO - £237

it it worth having faster read/writes?

[ryanbatc 12,798]

Didn't know the 850 was out - but the read speeds between the 840 pro and Evo are very close... I chose the Evo because of the 100 less than pro (USD). I don't know about the 850 though.

 

Honestly it's still about a minute to load on my Evo.

[RWFeldman 159]

From my recent experience with Corsair. One that WORKS! BTW, you wont even notice the difference between 350 and 500 speeds. Reliability and longevity is more important. IMO and from what I have researched. Ive rma'd 2 Force SSD's from Corsair. There super fantastic CS but it's getting ridiculous. No probs with Intel or Samsung SSD's.

[Steve Dra 7,574]

From what I've been reading, and being a new SSD owner myself, you should let price drive your decision because they are all blazingly fast compared to "mechanicals", which will I predict be extinct in a decade (or sooner) based on how the computer industry drives innovation. I mean, 10 years ago if you told me I could have a CPU that ran at almost 5ghz on air cooling (abet good air cooling), I'd would have said you're nuts!

 

Unless you find reviews out in the market from consumers that tell you specifically stay away from a brand, I'd be comfortable with any SSD and not worry if one was 1 or 2 microseconds faster to load 100mb worth of data than another.  In reality, it just wont matter, and you'll never see it in day to day operation related to flightsim. (Other intense data-transfer activities like video post-processing maybe you'll see the difference, but not in FS and normal daily activities).

 

My SDD absolutely transformed my aging laptop I play FS on, and has extended its life at a very timely point in my financial life.

So do a little research, but don't hem and haw too much about which one to get, because every second you spend on a mechanical vs an SSD is one more second that you'll say (after buying and installing one) "OMG, why didn't I do this long ago!?!?!?"   I known for me it was the capacity/price point that kept me away up until now (and I always let the rest of the world test bleeding edge tech for me before I jump in), but SSDs are now reaching reasonable consumer price levels, and the only advantage to waiting now is that, like anything in the computer world, they will get cheaper as time goes by. 

 

My choice (after much research like I'm sure you're currently doing) was the Crucial M500 256gb.  Price primarily drove my decision, also where I purchased was a big factor.  So far I'm very happy with it, and still in shock every time I boot my laptop in the morning and I can't even make it to the kitchen (very short distance), pour a cup of coffee and head back before Windows is staring me in the face.  Previous on the mechanical, I'd be several sips into that cup, waiting for it to present the login screen.  And now...when I type in my password, the desktop loads almost instantly...not like previously when I'd get to finish my cup of coffee waiting for that evolution!

 

Good luck on your search and purchase! 

[GodAtum 69]

Well the Samsung 850 has a 10 year warranty! very useful!

[Steve Dra 7,574]

Well the Samsung 850 has a 10 year warranty! very useful!

Very true Chris!  And you'd hope it would last that long...but here's the thing with 10 year warranties in the computer industry (that most people don't consider), in 10 years, you'll be on your 2nd or 3rd SDD by then because the technology had advanced so far that the puny 480 or 512 or even 850 you're on now will be obsolete by that time...so you won't be replacing your current SSD because it failed, you'll be replacing it because its too small or old tech (and the warranty doesn't cover that).    

In ten years, you'll be on a 3-4 terabyte SSD drive that is faster, and cheaper than the one you buy now.  This is a great thing for consumers!

 

So while I'm not discounting a 10 year warranty, in this industry, you'll be replacing your part (whatever it is) due to a tech upgrade long before you'll be replacing it for a malfunction that a 10 year warranty will cover (and check the fine print...they don't cover everything).  I had an Indus GT 5.25 floppy drive with a lifetime warranty, paid an exorbitant amount for it.  Bet if I could find it, find a way to make it work on my laptop, it would still work...but its been a while since I've used a floppy.   You see my point?    

[tonywob 4,768]

The difference even a cheap SSD will make is worth the cost, not just for X-Plane, but the entire system. I have a 250GB Corsair SSD, which I have the OS and X-Plane installed on, and it's painful to go back to a mechanical disk now. As an example, on a similar specced computer, Google Chrome takes about 0.5 second to open on an SSD, but about 3-4 seconds with a normal HD. X-Plane loads in about 20-30 seconds as opposed to 3-4 minutes (depending on scenery)

[Steve Dra 7,574]

 

 

The difference even a cheap SSD will make is worth the cost, not just for X-Plane, but the entire system. I have a 250GB Corsair SSD, which I have the OS and X-Plane installed on, and it's painful to go back to a mechanical disk now. As an example, on a similar specced computer, Google Chrome takes about 0.5 second to open on an SSD, but about 3-4 seconds with a normal HD. X-Plane loads in about 20-30 seconds as opposed to 3-4 minutes (depending on scenery)

 

Totally agree Tony and the point I was trying to make.  If you are still on a mechanical, ANY SSD is going to simply blow you away with its performance compared to that soon-to-be-extinct technology (At least in the consumer world, it may still have some viable military applications...read: more resistant to EMP).

 

And yes...extremely painful to use my work laptop after being on my home computer all weekend, waiting for it to boot, and waiting...and waiting, and...well you know.  And I thought MS Word had hung while opening this morning, since it opens instantaneously at home now....it was just the mechanical drive, thrashing around, little read head frantically zipping from one side of the platters to the other trying to find that last byte of code to present the screen to the end-user...seems rather sad.

Just think...where "average seek time" was a big selling point in the mechanical world, it is totally non-existent in the SSD world. This is one of the best technologies to increase the overall performance of computers that has come along...in a long time.  Everyone should be jummping on this bandwagon. :smile:

[greggerm 312]

 

 

From what I've been reading, and being a new SSD owner myself, you should let price drive your decision because they are all blazingly fast compared to "mechanicals"

 

^ What he said ^

 

Buy your SSD based on your capacity needs and reliability reviews. The nitty-gritty speed details are not likely to have any practical bearing on your use.

 

Recommendation which seems to be shared by others too - Aim to put your operating system and day-to-day applications on your SSD first, and if there's room use it for entertainment titles. You will get infinitely more useful of an investment by making the SSD your boot disk (OS, apps, etc.). Personally, I purchased a 2nd SSD for my entertainment titles (FSX, XP, Steam and Origin games...) for housekeeping and startup loading purposes, but the best decision I ever made was to put the OS on the SSD first and foremost.

 

Cheers!

-Greg

[Steve Dra 7,574]

 

 

but the best decision I ever made was to put the OS on the SSD first and foremost.

^ What he said too^

Hehe...if I was not clear in my long winded, enthusiastic response about replacing a mechanical with an SSD....without a doubt, make the SSD your boot drive (with the OS on it naturally).  The way I did it was partition the SSD into C: and D: drives...putting the OS on C and FSX on D....works wonderfully.  

That's the way I had it on my mechanical, and when I cloned it and rebooted, I just reassigned drive letters (still have the mechanical in there for a backup drive, now drives F and G), and everything worked perfectly...no reinstalls, no massaging the registry, no software key issues...just booted up FSX (incredibly fast I might add)...and flew off into the sunset, hehe

But Greg's way of having a separate SSD for your entertainment titles works well too...even better in most situations if you can swing the cost and physical space (I'm on a laptop so that is an issue for me.)