Thinking Of Switching to SSD

[Bob Scott 7,720]

I keep bulk storage (i.e. downloaded installers) and backups on a conventional HDD (a 1.5 TB WD Caviar Black).  Win7 and system stuff sits on a 256GB Samsung 850 Pro, and FSX/P3D share a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro.

 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that using SSDs also eliminates the need for defragging your OS and FS hard drives, which is a real time saver on the maintenance end.

 

Regards

[Sbacchini 15]

I keep bulk storage (i.e. downloaded installers) and backups on a conventional HDD (a 1.5 TB WD Caviar Black).  Win7 and system stuff sits on a 256GB Samsung 850 Pro, and FSX/P3D share a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro.

 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that using SSDs also eliminates the need for defragging your OS and FS hard drives, which is a real time saver on the maintenance end.

 

Regards

 

Since Windows 7, if I'm not mistaken, defragging is done in the background by the OS itself. It's one of those things that was really important but that nowadays no one should worry about.

[PaulGR 168]

For me SSD was the best PC upgrade I ever did.

It's like a whole new computer. Dunno if it helps with FSX but once your system starts for the first time you will ask yourself "why did I wait that long?".

[MrSpeaker 122]

Do you need an ssd for the os. Was thinking of getting one for now and using it just for fsx. Also was thinking of just creating an image of my fsx HD and dumping it on the new ssd so I don't have to reinstall everything. Anyone think there would be any issues with that.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

You can do that, that is how I did it.

 

Some addons may complain, so you selectively re-install those.

 

Having the OS on an SSD will give you better PC performance overall, however..

 

:wink:

[Dave_YVR 973]

 An SSD for the OS is essential. For FS or P3d it's more or of a nice to have thing. Load times will go down but that's where the performance gains end. Newer SSD's that run off of the PCIe bus will bring much much faster speeds than current SSD's and maybe with those we'll see actual performance gains.

[Bob Scott 7,720]

Since Windows 7, if I'm not mistaken, defragging is done in the background by the OS itself. It's one of those things that was really important but that nowadays no one should worry about.

 

No, I think you're confusing defragmentation with the automatic background TRIM passes done on SSDs by Win 7 and later. 

 

I have several Win7 machines that still use hard disks, and they definitely exhibit fragmentation with use, and they still require periodic use of a defrag utility to keep disk I/O from slowing down.

 

Regards

[dazz 69]

Actually there's a disk defrag built in Windows (dfrgui) I believe since Vista. Never used it myself and I have no idea if it works well or not. And of course an SSD should never be defragged

[martin-w 3,235]

Since Windows 7, if I'm not mistaken, defragging is done in the background by the OS itself. It's one of those things that was really important but that nowadays no one should worry about.

You are mistaken. Windows has had it's own defrag utility for many years. Now, in Windows 7 [certainly after XP] you can schedule a defrag for a particular date and time. That's the only difference. Or you can defrag manually. So yes, for a mechanical hard drive you should still consider it and either defrag yourself or set up a schedule.

 

Incidentally, I have always used the Windows defrag, I have never used any kind of third party defrag utility. The Windows defrag does the job fine.

[Sbacchini 15]

You are mistaken. Windows has had it's own defrag utility for many years. Now, in Windows 7 [certainly after XP] you can schedule a defrag for a particular date and time. That's the only difference. Or you can defrag manually. So yes, for a mechanical hard drive you should still consider it and either defrag yourself or set up a schedule.

 

Incidentally, I have always used the Windows defrag, I have never used any kind of third party defrag utility. The Windows defrag does the job fine.

 

Well, I never defrag my drives, and always when I analyze them they are at 0% defragmentation, using both windows and third party tools. So I guess the magic faeries are doing it when I'm not looking.

[PaulGR 168]

Well, I never defrag my drives, and always when I analyze them they are at 0% defragmentation, using both windows and third party tools. So I guess the magic faeries are doing it when I'm not looking.

 

Not exactly

Even when you run winrar/winzip on a 1MB picture you get defragmented files.

With regular HDs it's a good practice to schedule it every week or two. System needs to access files all the times and if has to go "looking around " it's simply slower.

Another reason why SSD makes it all so much nicer.

[martin-w 3,235]

Well, I never defrag my drives, and always when I analyze them they are at 0% defragmentation, using both windows and third party tools. So I guess the magic faeries are doing it when I'm not looking.

You didn't read my post properly. You are at 0% fragmentation because the W7 defrag utillity is doing it for you automatically in accordance with the schedule. As I said, you can allow it to do this at a given time or do it manually. This is the only difference between W7 and previous versions, namely that it can be set to do so automatically. It is not "done by the OS itself" it's done by the same defrag utility Windows has always had. In addition, it's not that "it was very important" as you said... it IS very important just as it always has been.

 

Hit Computer, right click your hard drive, click Properties, click Tools, click Defragment Now, and you'll see the tab to turn on the schedule!

[Sbacchini 15]

You didn't read my post properly. You are at 0% fragmentation because the W7 defrag utillity is doing it for you automatically in accordance with the schedule. As I said, you can allow it to do this at a given time or do it manually. This is the only difference between W7 and previous versions, namely that it can be set to do so automatically. It is not "done by the OS itself" it's done by the same defrag utility Windows has always had. In addition, it's not that "it was very important" as you said... it IS very important just as it always has been.

 

Hit Computer, right click your hard drive, click Properties, click Tools, click Defragment Now, and you'll see the tab to turn on the schedule!

 

You can argue semantics all you want, but I have never set this schedule. I really don't care if it is the OS itself doing it or another program, all I know is that the drives are always defragmented with no input of the user whatsoever.

[martin-w 3,235]

You can argue semantics all you want, but I have never set this schedule. I really don't care if it is the OS itself doing it or another program, all I know is that the drives are always defragmented with no input of the user whatsoever.

 

 

No, you said...

 

 

It's one of those things that was really important but that nowadays no one should worry about.

 

 

The above is not true at all and gives others the impression that they shouldn't care about defragmenting their hard drives. It's not WAS very important, it IS very important. It's not "no one should worry about it" it's make sure you have a schedule set, or make sure you do it periodically manually.

 

No one is getting at you, no one is attacking you, but it's right that if you are technically inaccurate that others should point it out in order to protect those that don't have an automatic defrag schedule set. If you have a schedule set as default then all power to you. On my daughters PC for example an automatic schedule wasn't set!

 

There's no need for you to be defensive. I get things wrong all the time and am grateful when others correct me.

[delamar 1]

Ok, so from what i understood, its a good idea to get fsx and windows 7 installed in an ssd and the rest in the HD. But no one could answer my other question... Do i need to check if the ssd is compatible with the motherboard, or cpu or they're all compatible with each other? Thanks