To SSD or not?

[SubOne@YPPH 0]

With a new system about to be put together, my big question is whether to make the big leap to using SSD for the OS and running FSX + addons.

 

I have read that having the OS on a SSD makes a big difference to starting up the system, but compared to having FSX and all other flightsim stuff on one HDD v's SSD there isn't really much noticeable difference.

 

Can anyone please provide comments on this or experience with running FSX on an individual SSD.  What size SSD would be recommended for FSX and addons?

 

I will be including a couple of HDD for storage as a matter of course for things like photos, videos etc.

 

Thanks in advance...

[learn-by-flying 37]

I personally have made the choice not to switch to SSDs, I still have my installation on a 1TB 7200rpm drive. Now I don't run any photo scenery which is where the difference will be made, it depends on how much data transfer and retrieval your add-ons will use. If you are a heavy photo scenery user it may be worth it, otherwise I enjoyed my velociraptors which were in my previous rig.

[MichaelTurner 5]

Having the  OS and  FSX installed on one or more SSDs makes a considerable difference to OS and FSX system  loading times but has little benefit when FSX is running as regards FPS.

 

SSDs are now reasonably priced so it isn't as big a leap as perhaps  it was two years ago. If you are building from scratch you might want to consider an M.2 SATA or PCIe SSD. These slot directly onto a compatible  Motherboard and don't need a separate power lead or SATA port.

[Capt Richardo 12]

Get a SSD and as large as you can afford. Your FSX loading times will be seconds and although on the surface you probably wont notice a huge diffrence a SSD is probably the best hardware upgrade you can invest in.

 

Keep ur HDD for non essential programs, storage or backups, good combo IMO.

[ryanbatc 12,849]

With a lot of addons (scenery mainly but airplanes too) my load times went from about 4 min (7200 rpm) to 1 min (500GB Evo SSD)

 

Boot times went from about 1:30 to 30 sec