4Tb M.2 drive - is partitioning feasible?

[G-RFRY 1,729]

12 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I realise that. 😉 Loading time of P3D needs to be quicker. I’m not as young as I used to be. Time matters. 😁

I moved P3D from a SSD to a Samsung 990 PRO M2 drive three times faster but not loading three times faster. other factors are at play 20 year old code CPU`s can only crunch data at the max no more, this the bottleneck that holds old titles back even MSFS the 4090 is held back by the CPU cannot push data through fast enough.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,040]

@G-RFRY, but I bet it was considerably faster otherwise you wouldn't have been a happy bunny.

Every flight sim is probably CPU limited. All you can do is get the fastest CPU, GPU, RAM and be sensible with your settings and you'll be satisfied.

[IanHarrison 526]

My 2d worth (yes, still old currency). I partitioned my drives to make backup easier. Small chunks relating to individual areas of interest can be reloaded much quicker if required to be restored.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,040]

1 hour ago, IanHarrison said:

My 2d worth (yes, still old currency). I partitioned my drives to make backup easier. Small chunks relating to individual areas of interest can be reloaded much quicker if required to be restored.

I did think about that but generally back up my C and D drives on the same day. Same amount of data just a different method of backing it up.

I’ve never had to restore a complete drive as I’ve never suffered a SSD crash. 🤞

[Dave_YVR 997]

On 9/14/2023 at 3:51 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

but I bet it was considerably faster otherwise you wouldn't have been a happy bunny.

Even from a good Sata SSD to an speedy new nvme M2 drive will only decrease load times by a few seconds. 

[Ray Proudfoot 9,040]

5 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

Even from a good Sata SSD to a speedy new nvme M2 drive will only decrease load times by a few seconds. 

But add in a faster CPU, DDR5 RAM over DDR4 plus the M.2 and load speeds should be noticeably quicker.

[TurboKen 221]

On 9/13/2023 at 12:32 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

That was my original plan but was told that one connection would be on the slower gen 4 socket. Reviews tell you gen 4 is a lot slower than gen 5 but in reality is it noticeable?

The alternative would be to have two M.2 drives both connected to the gen 5 sockets but that would mean I couldn’t connect a future gen 5 GPU. It would take something special to make the 4090 worth replacing.

One thing is for sure. It will take some effort to get close to filling 4Tb.

For backups I have a Synology NAS box. Well worth considering.

Having the additional drive on the gen4 socket will still be plenty fast. Go for it.

All this talk of upgrades is making me think hmmm....14900k or AMD3D. lol...

[Garys 211]

As others have suggested, keep them seperate, no partitioning. The speed difference is negligible. With frequent backups for redundancy a failed drive isnt going to give you any major issues other than a cheap hit to the hip pocket. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Garys

[Ray Proudfoot 9,040]

6 minutes ago, TurboKen said:

Having the additional drive on the gen4 socket will still be plenty fast. Go for it.

All this talk of upgrades is making me think hmmm....14900k or AMD3D. lol...

Too late now. It’s all ordered and I’m just awaiting the build to start.

5 minutes ago, Garys said:

As others have suggested, keep them seperate, no partitioning. The speed difference is negligible. With frequent backups for redundancy a failed drive isnt going to give you any major issues other than a cheap hit to the hip pocket. 

I’ve never had a failed drive in any flight sim computer. The only one that crashed on me was a HDD in a Samsung netbook back in 2021. Mind you I bought it in 2009 and it was running constantly as it fed weather data every 15 mins to my website.

Replaced it with an SSD and it’s still going strong to this day. 👍

[Dave_YVR 997]

10 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

But add in a faster CPU, DDR5 RAM over DDR4 plus the M.2 and load speeds should be noticeably quicker.

Maybe by a little bit, but it's still not going to be much. Even the DDR5 over DDR4 you aren't really going to notice it yet except in benchmarks.

[IanHarrison 526]

On 9/16/2023 at 12:12 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’ve never had a failed drive in any flight sim computer.

I had one complete disaster about 4 years ago. A complete failure of the system drive. Since then nothing  of consequence.

[TurboKen 221]

Its never really too late, you could always add another hard drive later if you decide you want another... Really easy to do.

Anyway, any updates on the system, or still waiting for it to be built.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,040]

@TurboKen, still waiting and yes, another drive could be added if required.