Just built a new P3D rig and this time I replaced my 2 Intel 520 Series SSDs I used in my previous rig (one 120 GB for OS and one 240 GB for P3D) with a single 400 GB Intel 750 Series PCIe NVMe SSD.

 

Up until now I've only been playing around with the new rig finding a stable overclock etc but now it's time to perform the final installation of Win 10 and P3D and I'm on the fence if I should go with one or two partitions.

 

In a way it would be nice to partition the disk so I can go on using a separate drive letter in Windows for everything related to P3D but then on the other hand I could of course simply use a separate folder directly under the root of the drive called FlightSim or whatever.

 

Anyone in here knows if partitioning the disk will affect the performance in any way?

I would place both the O/S and P3D on the fastest drive. If you do direct the P3D installation to another drive, not all of the P3D files will be found on the other drive anyway. So the system is always coordinating multiple drives for no useful reason. In terms of reliability, the partitioned SSD is not a problem to it. SSDs are far better at longevity, but it's still best not to allow them to fill up too far. In terms of where to stick P3D, I allow the program to place in default location Program Files to avoid any inconsistencies with other software in the future. I would also add the Write permission for the Users group for the P3D program folder so that authenticated Users get Write permission. This is to assist some addons that might place files in the P3D folder that require write access without admin permissions. Obviously you can make your own folder on the main drive or another drive for P3D, which inherits your permissions and so gets access for Writing files that way, but only for you. I would add the Write permission for the Users group on that folder just the same to avoid any problems in the future.

Of course I will install both Windows and P3D on the fastest drive. My question if I will have any pros or cons partitioning the disk from a performance perspective.

 

In my previous rig where I had two separate physical disks (one for Windows and one for P3D) I gave the P3D disk the letter P: and then I installed P3D including all addons to the default path only changing the disk/letter from C: to P:.

 

Since that has been working really good I'm thinking of doing it the same way with this rig but now that I don't have two disks but only one I'll need to partition the disk to achieve that. Hence my question if I'll risk affecting the performance in a bad way by partitioning the drive but I guess that should do any noticable difference on a fast SSD?

 

If I decide to partition the disk my plan is to use 100 GB for a C: partition for Windows and the remaining space for a P: partition for P3D giving me roughly 300 GB.

I can't see any problem with that, although it's maybe just possible you might need to reassign space between partitions in the future.

Yeah, I was thinking about that too but I have a very hard time believing I would ever need more than 100 GB for my Windows disk since this will be a pure P3D rig.

 

But then on the other hand...we all know who said 640 KB should be enough for everyone...:wink:

If you want to get tricky, and you don't have a partitioned drive and don't have a second drive, you could share the program folder and assign a drive letter to the share.

Interesting idea but I think I'll just partition the drive and should I need to in the future I can always reallocate the space between the two partitions.

I have a 512GB SSD partitioned for both FSX & P3D. No issues

Thanks for the input John :smile: