Before my computer crashed this past Feb I had fsx gold edition on its own separate drive

With the coming release of the new sim 2020 and shortly will be getting my new computer, I plan on running both programs

Concluding.  Would it be best for each sim have it's own separate drive? Or fsx would be on same drive as the OS and the new SIM 2020 on another drive

 

 

 

 

Hi,

 

Well one of the things it depends upon is how many add-ons you have or plan to install and their size for both sims (?)

I  think you are going to end up needing potentially more space for FS2020 in the long run given the larger amounts of scenery data available, especially if you end up caching the scenery locally (depends on available internet bandwidth). We do not know how much space a typical FS2020 installation will take though given the different scenery streaming options FS2020 plans to introduce. MS are claiming 150Gb but thats just the core sim.

 

My suggestion would be to keep Windows OS on a separate drive to all sim-related files. You dont need such a big disk for this. 256Gb should be ample.

You could then install one additional large capacity drive and partition that in say two partitions and have a sim in each partition. With that approach you have some redundancy if one of the physical disks goes down and backing up is simpler too.

I would not mix OS and sims on the same drive out of personal preference. If Windows is touching the c:drive during say a major update, then you can be confident that sim data on other partitioned drives should be safe.

 

My other suggestion depending upon budget you have available, would be to opt for SSDs rather than HDDs.Prices are coming down. I have just purchased a 2TB NMVe SSD  to accommodate both P3Dv5 and FS2020 on a single SSD. I think that could help with loading times of the sim.

I would read some posts in the sub-forums here to get an idea of how others have organized their sims but I imagine quite a few have done this in the way I described above.

Of course, at the end of the day, it comes down to your own personal choice and experience

 

Regards.

Definitely go with SSD's, the prices are far more reasonable these days, they make no noise, they generate less heat, they remain equally efficient from empty to 85% full, there is little reason today to consider a HDD for your OS or flight sims.  I, too, prefer to keep my flight sims on a separate drive.  How many drives or what capacity you need will depend upon how many GB's each sim requires on the drive.  Keep in mind that SSD's begin to slow when they exceed 85% of their storage capacity.

On 6/12/2020 at 4:10 PM, aldridgem said:

My suggestion would be to keep Windows OS on a separate drive to all sim-related files.

Why? In the days of just hard drives it made sense as you didn't want the OS drive to become fragmented with all of the additional files. SSDs don't need defragmenting and the argument that it's easier to reinstall the OS if something catastrophic happens isn't really valid. Most apps and games rely on many registry entries to make them function and a clean install of the OS wipes all of these so your software would almost certainly also need reinstalling to restore the registry entries.

On 6/12/2020 at 4:10 PM, aldridgem said:

If Windows is touching the c:drive during say a major update, then you can be confident that sim data on other partitioned drives should be safe.

See above. Firstly, it's highly unlikely that any of your sim data would be overwritten by a Windows update. Secondly, even if it was, having your sim on its own drive (with the exception of XP) wouldn't make it usable because of the registry problem. It may look neater and more organised putting things on their own drives but it doesn't necessarily make things any safer. Regular system backups are the best solution.

Edited June 15, 20205 yr by vortex681

3 hours ago, vortex681 said:

Why? In the days of just hard drives it made sense as you didn't want the OS drive to become fragmented with all of the additional files. SSDs don't need defragmenting and the argument that it's easier to reinstall the OS if something catastrophic happens isn't really valid. Most apps and games rely on many registry entries to make them function and a clean install of the OS wipes all of these so your software would almost certainly also need reinstalling to restore the registry entries.

See above. Firstly, it's highly unlikely that any of your sim data would be overwritten by a Windows update. Secondly, even if it was, having your sim on its own drive (with the exception of XP) wouldn't make it usable because of the registry problem. It may look neater and more organised putting things on their own drives but it doesn't necessarily make things any safer. Regular system backups are the best solution.

Yep and registries can become corrupted and some Windows OS updates fail. Even the latest 2004 May 2020 update is causing installation issues for some users.

Therefore, again its my preference that I have sims located on a separate drive. Also easier to troubleshoot if one drive, albeit if the robustness of the drives have improved, that doesnt rule out that one day they may fail.

These are added safeguards that can prevent hassle down the line. Of course totally your choice and perogative of what advice you want to follow.

 

Agreed. Regular backups are also wise to perform. I dont backup every sim file because I have all the installers to hand, but I have backup routine I wrote that saves the important cfg and ini files should i need to roll back.

 

I'm not that great computer savy, but my last setup was operating system was on c drive and FSX\ Gold editjon f drive, seperate drive. And that was with my 3770k oc 4.2gjz

Now I am looking to purchsse 10700k with 2070 super oc.  I plan on having and reinstalliing FSX and of course new SIM microsoft 2020

I am look in at rebuilt systems usually they have 500gb on a sad and 1000gb hard drive 

Thus my next question is how would I organize this. With the 2 Sims and the OS?

 

 

At the very least I’d say if you do go one big drive then partition it to two drives at least. Say a C and D. Install the sims on a separate partition just for ease of use down the line but that’s opinion not “fact”.

i have a 500gb m.2 nvme with windows and resolve, PS etc all on it. Then a separate 1tb m.2 nvme that I have P3D on, with a separate folder for ORBX on the root of the drive...and  another 500gb sata ssd with DCS and Xplane on along with some random steam VR games (no mans sky etc)

finally an old school mechanical hard drive that I have my video masters I keep on there.

 

Edited June 16, 20205 yr by CaptainNick

17 hours ago, aldridgem said:

Also easier to troubleshoot if one drive, albeit if the robustness of the drives have improved, that doesnt rule out that one day they may fail.

I have a large, relatively inexpensive external hard drive especially to cover this eventuality. I do a weekly automatic differential backup of the whole system (all drives) which takes about 45 minutes and covers me not only for mechanical failures but also for potential software update issues (non so far). The differential backup makes an original full-system single backup file and then produces a smaller file every week which is the difference between the original backup and the current state of the system. By keeping a number of the differentials, I can restore my system to any state from the past when that differential was taken. I only need 2 files to fully restore my system to a known, working state. This regime covers all the bases for me and means that with most disasters I can be back up and running much faster (and more easily) than if I’d had to reinstall the OS and all of the individual pieces of software and games.

Edited June 16, 20205 yr by vortex681