New rig - How to compose SSDs?

[David_CSA 36]

Good day,

Allow me to ask:

I am building a new rig with the following goal:

• MSFS 2020 at 1440p, target 30 fps,
• both Airliners and GA,
• no 3rd party scenery, but here and there (not too complex) 3rd party aircraft.

So far I have selected:

• Intel i7-10700K (OC),
• Geforce RTX 3070 (when available),
• 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3200MHz,
• Asus ROG Strix Z490-F,
• Corsair H115i PRO XT cooler,
• Corsair 850W RMx 80+ Gold,
• Corsair Obsidian 750D case (I know the case doesn't matter, just wanted to share.)

 

The problem is I don't have any experience with MSFS 2020 as my current PC cannot run it. I am still on FSX:SE on a HDD.

How would you advice to compose the SSDs, please?

I know for sure I would like to have the system (Win10) on M.2 NVMe. Further I know I need about 1 TB for non-flying stuff (photos, videos etc.)

1) Is it o.k. to have MSFS2020 on the same drive as Win10? Or is it better to have it on a separate drive (either M.2 or SATA SSD)?

2) And how much space is reasonable to have for MSFS (e.g. scenery cache)? My internet is not the fastest - 30-50 Mbps.

Currently I am considering (but have no clue how to decide):

Option A (sort of pricey...:-((( )

• 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2, PCIe NVMe

Option B (is this enough?)

• 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2, PCIe NVMe (Win10; MSFS)
• 1TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA (for other stuff)

Option C (overdone?)

• 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2, PCIe NVMe (Win10; MSFS)
• 2TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA (for other stuff incl. other MSFS items??)

I can add other drives later, but what is sensible to have for the first 2 years?

 

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Nice evening and thank you,

David

[RichieFly 728]

I know you'll enjoy your new computer.  🙂 I don't have a solid recommendation, but I'd like to give you my experience with storage as an example.

I have 4 flight sims installed (wait! it's 5 now). I'm an amature photographer and vintage photograph restorer. I also play video games. In short, I need lots of drive space. And, in every iteration of computer build over the years, I've never had too much space. In fact, every time, I end up adding and replacing drives to provide more space. I'm likely not very representative of an average PC user, but maybe an example of how storage requirements change over time.

You know about what you'll need. I can see you've very carefully planned this new PC build. I would encourage you go big. Evaluate your storage needs and then future proof your design.

I generally reserve my boot drive for the OS and have found 1TB to be a good size. The /users/<user name> directory grows over time in an alarming fashion and it's less work to just let it happen knowing you have the space. M.2 NVMe here. I have another M.2 slot and have another NVMe drive there. Access speed is nice if you work with large files. The other drives are SSD SATA. You may not have 2 M.2 slots available, so as availability dictates. (In my case, I can have 2 NVMe M.2, but have to sacrifice 2 SATA ports to enable this; worth it).

In short, if you can afford it, go big. 1TB boot device. 2TB secondary M.2 and additional SSD(s) as you see fit as time goes along.

 

[pgde 571]

You may want to check out the new AMD Zen3 processers and the 6xxx series of AMD video cards. 

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Or go smaller..

500 GB for the OS

1 TB for flightsim stuff (can be SATA)

Or even smaller (what I have)

250 GB for the OS

500 GB for flightsim stuff  (you will be adding additional storage over time..)

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Bert Pieke

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

You can have everything on one SSD. As long as it's not getting nearly full, you will not lose performance by having both the OS and games on it.

I would recommend avoiding Samsung SSDs. The 870 QVO is just not good, and while the 970 EVO Plus is the very best, you will not really notice a difference in speed outside of benchmarks compared to mid-range NVME SSDs. They have their reputation for good reason, but nowadays it doesn't make sense to pay a tax for that reputation when other manufacturers have made extremely competitive solutions. Look into those models instead:

• Western Digital Blue SN550
• Kingston A2000
• Mushkin Pilot-E
• ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro
• Silicon Power P34A80

And if you live in the US, those are excellent choices as well:

• Sabrent Rocket
• SK Hynix Gold P31

[canadiantree 233]

Any thoughts on the PNY XLR8 CS3030 ? I can get 1 TB for 110€.PNY CS2130 is also the same price.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

5 hours ago, canadiantree said:

Any thoughts on the PNY XLR8 CS3030 ? I can get 1 TB for 110€.PNY CS2130 is also the same price.

The CS3030 seems very capable, 8-channel controller with DRAM, good sequentials, flash is a bit old but not bad at all. The CS2130 seems to have very similar specifications but we don't know what flash it uses so I'd go for the former. If in your region it costs less than the ADATA and Silicon Power drives I mentioned above, it's a good deal.

[David_CSA 36]

Dear Flyers,

Big thank you to all who tried to help and especially to RichieFly and ChaoticBeauty. I really appreciate your time you put into the asnwers and your expertise.

I live in Europe (NL and CZ) and our purchase options are therefore a bit different to people in the US. There are no megashops like Microcenter here, but of course a lot of stuff can be purchased online. Still, prices and availability are different.

May I ask once again, please, how much space on your drives is in total related to MSFS after several weeks of flying? I know the specifications mention 150 GB, but how much is it in total in your case?

Thank you and as Kelsey says, "Keep the Blue Side Up!"

David

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

1 hour ago, David_CSA said:

May I ask once again, please, how much space on your drives is in total related to MSFS after several weeks of flying? I know the specifications mention 150 GB, but how much is it in total in your case?

Premium Deluxe version without any add-ons takes up 105GB on my system. Some more space will be taken by the rolling and manual caches, but you can set those yourself or completely disable them. The default rolling cache size is 8GB I believe.

[Bob Scott 7,716]

Currently MSFS is a little over 100GB, plus however much scenery cache you go with.  But if i've learned anything in over 25 years of doing this, it's to never try and "right size" storage for a simulator.  Even if you don't intend to become an add-on junkie like me, MS/Asobo may well be adding to the base sim over time.

Also, you need to overprovision, e.g. allow at least 10% (better 20%) free on the SSD to allow it room for wear-levelling and trimming.  If you don't, it will slow way down as it approaches full.

Of the three options you listed, I'd go with A, the single 2TB EVO Plus.  I'm not a fan of Samsung's QVO flash drives.  In the HDD era, I used to keep my OS on a separate device for performance reasons, but random-access on SSDs makes that logic obsolete.  The only reason I can think of to segregate the OS to a separate drive is to make system backups go a little faster.

 

[David_CSA 36]

Dear w6kd,

Thank  you for your tip to go for 2TB EVO Plus. I did it  and I am very happy now. What a wonderful piece of technology! Have a good day, David

Edited December 5, 2020 by David_CSA