Long time user of Flight Simulator and I'm still on FSX! I have a highly modified setup that just works for me on FSX. But I'm finally building a new computer and will be upgrading to MSFS2024.

I have read that the game goes on drive C but "content" should go on another drive. I will have, or was planning,  one 4TB fast NVME SSD so space is not an issue.

So the question .. why install "CONTENT" on a separate drive? 

Edited November 11, 2025Nov 11 by bill10

Technology has changed considerably since … there is no need to place content on another drive so long as you have space for the content and use fast SSDs and/or NVMe.

The only exception I’ve seen propagated is if the user is still using HDDs (mechanical) via SATA … each SATA port does have dedicated bus … BUT, they all combine into the PCH so ultimately shared bandwidth anyway … so even separate OS/content HDDs still no benefit.

It was more Urban Legend to use separate OS/source and content HDDs and I never saw any “actual” evidence of performance improvements to flight simulators.

Anyway, bottom line is your single 4TB NVMe will be fine for all things persistent storage … you will see NO performance loss.

Edited November 11, 2025Nov 11 by SayAgain

1 hour ago, bill10 said:

I have read that the game goes on drive C but "content" should go on another drive.

Curious where did you read that?   With your proposed storage, I can't think of any meaningful performance advantage to splitting content off to another drive as was said.

I did install the 24 to my D-drive.

2 hours ago, bill10 said:

So the question .. why install "CONTENT" on a separate drive? 

 

It's just an option that you don't need to adopt.
My own reason is that my C drive is only 240GB and would be overwhelmed
by MSFS 2020, 460GB before addons and MSFS 2024, 74GB (64GB rolling cache).

The bottom line is read all the advice and then choose that which applies to you.
Goodness knows that in the world of flight simulation, one size fits all does not exist.
 

We could discuss efficiency to the limit ( will alsways be a gain even if not evident, when doing simultaneous read/write ops, parallel I/O ops like textures in one drive being read while the other manages logs or CACHE, etc...), and that's what I do, leaveing the simulator CACHE in C : and the rest ( Packages ) in E: bit there's probably yet another advantage since FS 2020 which is the way some updates used to mess around with your aimulator when it was fully installed into a single drive.

Using different drives or partitions might have had some advantages in the days of mechanical drives but I suspect now with fast SSDs there isn't any point in splitting it up and the extra complexity is more likely to cause problems. If you are using a large SSD just install it all to the default location.

I think there are people who adopted a method of installing that they copied from advice 20 years ago and are still following despite changing technology. 

21 minutes ago, bailout said:

I think there are people who adopted a method of installing that they copied from advice 20 years ago and are still following despite changing technology.

That would be me 🙂

I always partition my drive with a C partition for the operating system, data, and production apps (Office, etc.) and a D partition for games (both on the same SSD).

This philosophy comes from building servers where a small OS partition could be rapidly restored from backup. As I use a block-level backup to protect the data on my gaming rig, this still works for me as I can restore the OS without including over 600GB of games.

Other advantages is the D partition isn't subject to the same security as the OS drive which can cause problems with badly behaved software (far less common these days), and its easier to navigate without OS folders cluttering up the root.

Performance used to be another reason, but as other posters have said, that is no longer an issue with NVMe SSDs.

Obviously you'd need to calculate the amount of space you'd need for the C drive and double it. I have around 250 GB of apps and data so I create a 500GB partition.

If you have loads of add-ons, 'Packages' is a folder you dip into frequently, so I've moved this from my user profile on the C drive to the root of my D drive.

Good luck with your build!

9 hours ago, Mace said:

Curious where did you read that?   With your proposed storage, I can't think of any meaningful performance advantage to splitting content off to another drive as was said.

Hello Mace ... There was one specific post here by a long term member, it is entirely possible I may have misunderstood or it was not in reference to my exact build but the quote was ... "If you want to keep things clean and simple... just allow the core sim to install on the C drive.. avoids a whole bunch of links that could become troublesome over time..   Content on a different drive?  Yes! "

Thanks ALL for your helpful replies! 

4 hours ago, flyingscampi said:

Other advantages is the D partition isn't subject to the same security as the OS drive which can cause problems with badly behaved software

I’d say the opposite, good reason to install on a more secure location … because of badly behaving software.

5 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

I’d say the opposite, good reason to install on a more secure location … because of badly behaving software.

I meant old or badly written programs that didn't conform to Win 32 API rather than malware.

4 hours ago, flyingscampi said:

meant old or badly written programs that didn't conform to Win 32 API rather than malware

yeah I know your intent was sound for “the old days”, but I would NOT want to install any software that didn’t conform to best practices … not in this day and age and given that some software game vendors and content providers have distributed malware.  

Same goes with any game software or add-on that requires one to “Run As Administrator” … just say NO, Absolutely NOT … tell the vendor to get their S_it together (be it payware or freeware).

Heck even today several 3rd party content providers still don’t buy certificates from a CA for their installers which triggers various security warnings from the OS and/or anti-virus/malware tools.  A cert is only $70/yr from a CA … if that’s breaking the 3rd party vendors income stream then they have bigger issues to consider.  And if they are freeware … well, you’re asking your users to give up security … do you really want to do that?

I know one very popular 3rd party content provider still doesn’t … no excuse, it’s really not that hard unless the vendor is concerned about their company legitimacy and background checks?

Anyway, slightly off the beaten path, recommend staying with default install paths for MSFS, the rolling cache is low risk so can be anywhere if one is running into space issues.

Edited November 11, 2025Nov 11 by SayAgain

One thing I have found that worked well was to NOT to install MSFS to the default location.  (Drive selection can be per whatever works.)  I know there were many folks in the past who had to do full reinstalls when something went amiss vs those that had the sim installed at a non-default pathing.   That's my only advice.   BTW, Addon Linker works great with content that is housed across other drives.  I personally have airports stored in directories per state (here in the US)  Load only what I need.

Both ways work perfectly fine and there’s no inherent advantage of one over the other. Just depends on what you prefer. 
 

back in the 2020 days, it DID matter a lot. If you wanted to reinstall, and had your content on a custom drive, you could reinstall the base sim files fairly quick from the store, and then the multi hour download could just be skipped by telling the installer the path of the files. so it was a big deal (saved you hours and hours). 
 

thankfully, 2024 does not take hours to install so now it really doesn’t matter.