stormbringer

Awesome info Saab. Great source post too. I highly recommend everyone to go to the source post (see Saab340's link above).

For martin-w: Mine hasn't been noisy, but I've heard complaint from others. Perhaps it's the computer case they put it in? I use a "quiet" computer case --- it has rubber mountings to isolate any vibration noise, and special case panels to absorb sounds. Antec P192 (though there are similar cases out there). For linux731: WD line from bottom (cr*p) to top is: Green-Blue-Red-Black-RE4....also know as their Green, Mainstream, (cheap) special NAS/consumer RAID drives, Enthusiasts, and Enterprise segments. It's pointless if windows boot speed is not a problem for you. It all depends on what your bottleneck is --- in this case, FSX taking "15 years to startup" (how long is it really?). This could be due to slow CPU, lack of RAM (causing swapping to your (typically) OS drive), slow drive, or other factors. Go to windows performance monitor while FSX is starting up and see what is happening ---- is CPU pegged at 100% (well, 25% for a quad-core)? Are any of your drives going 100%? Is your memory consumption at 100%? That will determine your bottleneck and therefore what to improve to solve your performance issue.

The best investment is usually a (small) SSD drive as the OS boot drive - assuming the 2-3 minutes startup annoys you, or you prefer a 15s startup. Usually 64GB, but 256GB are the 'fastest'......though you may not notice much of a difference btw 64GB and 256GB (10-20%? - usually not noticeable in human terms). Beyond that, most software avoids reading from storage like the plague since they are so slow. Until EVERYONE has SSDs as their only drives, software developers will still avoid reading from storage as much as possible, and SSDs won't speed things up massively across the board. But if you have a specific disk-intensive process in your computer usage (like for me, FSX loading 1000+ models into the Aircraft preview), an SSD definately speeds up that part. Is it worth $500 for that? That's only something you and your wallet (and maybe the wife/gf - lol) can decide. To Avantime..... Yeah, I only buy Western Digital Caviar Blacks, or their Enterprise line (the RE4). My current setup has a 4TB RE4 as my main storage drive, with a Synology NAS using Caviar Blacks as my backup. I don't trust the Green-line since they are basically cost-cutting versions of the main Western Digital drives, meant to compete with the cheap Seagates. They do additional testing on the RE4s before they ship to customers, so it reduces DOAs due to manufacturing (but not DOAs due to shipping). I've been lucky enough to not have a HDD failure yet (of the 15 HDDs I've purchased so far in my lifetime). The cost of data-loss or trying to do a recovery is more than the additional cost of a better drive, IMO. Again, different budgets, different conclusions.

Correct. An SSHD (aka Hybrid HDD) is a normal HDD with a small SSD (well, flash memory chips) on the controller board. The drive itself determines what gets cached in the SSD based upon some algorithm the manufacturer came up with - usually some variation of frequently used HDD blocks based upon the number of reads against that block over some period of time (since drive power-up? since the drive was made?). The details don't matter, just how well they perform for you. Check out the reviews and see if your expected workload type against it is a good cost-effective improvement. Mind you, seagate isn't the best brand. They have a higher failure rate than say, Western Digital.....which is why Western Digital costs more. But if you have a good backup, and know how to do a successful restore, it could be a good bargain. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. Keep that in mind. Technolust can part you from your hard-earned $$$$ sooooo very quickly.......

For discounts, you can obsessively watch the HardForum.com hardware sales forum. The cheapest the 960GB Crucial m500 SSD has been is $440 from Amazon.com, and B&H Photo 2 weeks back. Prices are back up to $500 now though. Sorry, I can't comment on SSHDs (aka Hybrid HDDs) - haven't tried them. I'm sure there's some good reviews of them somewhere reliable like Anandtech.com, SSDReview.com, or StorageReview.com. I checked the reviews out when I was doing my new computer build 6 months ago, but I wanted the fastest possible storage with money being (nearly) no object - so didn't get one. Something similar can be achieved using Intel's Rapid Storage Technology using a separate 64GB SSD as a cache drive, and a hard drive of your choosing. You may want to check that option out too for a bit more flexibility in choosing an HDD drive size and brand (or even your existing HDD).

Actually, I have a friend who keeps his drives for almost 10 years. He just keeps adding them into his large computer case. Regarding SSD: If you are a typical user (i.e.your storage usage is typical and you keep your drive for up to 5 years) - no problem whatsoever. If you are an atypical user (i.e. your storage usage is typical and you keep your drive for 10+ years (yeah, crazy) - no problem whatsoever. If you are an atypical user (i.e. you do EXTENSIVE video editing/recording, generate large database/cache files) and keep your drive for 7-10+ years - there is a good chance you will have a problem. Consumer SSD drives (i.e. using MLC memory) typically can handle 20+GB of writes per day for up to 5 years (or something along those lines). That's way more than a TYPICAL user would do. If you are an extreme power-user, it probably isn't a problem, but you may want to check how much writing you do. Bottom line - 99% of users won't have a problem. Just trying to be precise so the other 1% (0.1%?) don't get problems.

It depends on your budget and current setup. If you have a low-end setup, or a small budget for a PC, then usually a huge SSD is the least cost-effective purchase/upgrade...... The SSD is good for: 1) speeding up your OS boot - mine went from almost 2 minutes to 15s 2) speeding up your FSX aircraft "pool" loading IF you have MANY (>1000 models) aircraft 3) it MAY help loading scenery if you have a LOT of scenery in 1 area (MAYBE) --- but you are more likely to hit a VAS OOM before the SSD makes a difference. 4) speeding up normal game loading times (STEAM games, etc.) Make sure you purchase or upgrade to these 1st: a) a fast CPU b ) an overclockable CPU (and supporting motherboard, CPU fans/cooling, etc.) c) if using P3D v2.0 a fast and high-memory GPU (Titan, GTX 780, etc.) SSDs don't last as long as hard-drives so if you hold onto your drives for a while, HDD storage is more reliable. If money is no object, and/or you already have a good rig and have enough cash, then a 1TB SSD is fun to have. (or 2, like I have ). Just make sure to get a reliable SSD (i.e. Crucial m500, or Samsung, generally speaking). As for is it bad to put EVERYTHING on it....... The SSD probably has enough bandwidth to handle anything you throw at it......but it could be a bit faster if you split OS onto it's own boot SSD, and everything else onto an app SSD. And a little more reliable (and cheaper storage/TB) if you put your data/downloads, etc. onto a large HDD. For example, my setup: C - OS boot SSD (Samsung 840 Pro) D - FSX/P3D SSD (1TB Crucial m500) E - photoscenery/FSX & P3D overflow SSD (1TB Crucial m500) F - storage drive (4TB Western Digital) And a NAS for backups/offline storage. This setup is massive overkill for most people/purposes.....but I have a HUGE FSX collection, and was willing to spend the $$$, so it works for me. Thanks, David

I have a “large” FSX installation I would like to migrate to P3Dv2 but have some constraints. What would be the best migration strategy? a ) My FSX files take up 1.5 TB and is still growing.......... b ) My main FSX drive (1TB SSD is nearly full) and am moving/installing photo-scenery to a future additional 1TB SSD. c ) I would like to avoid actually 'installing' my aircraft and scenery...both due to time, and trying to avoid doubling space consumption.................because – 300+ payware aircraft, 800+ freeware aircraft, 350+ payware sceneries. Plus photosceneries - 20+ Megascenery States, Switzerland X, Germany X, Austria X, France VFR, NL2000, and growing....... d ) If I can, I'd like to still run FSX in case there is anything that doesn't work in P3Dv2 Ideally: D:\ FSX main installation w/ all aircraft and sceneries that can't live on 'overflow' drive + P3D installation + P3D virtual directories (via FlightSim Estonia P3D Migration Tool) F:\ all FSX sceneries that can be installed to non-FSX drive (i.e. NL2000, Megascenery Earth, any others?) I'm hoping that P3DV2's improved memory management will allow me to: a ) not have to anymore deactivate all my sceneries except flight source and destination b ) not have to anymore clear out my EXE.xml, and DLL.xml periodically due to memory issues(?) of too many files running. (Hoping........but realistically, I'm guessing P3DV2 won't allow it with this many add-ons.....) Suggestions on the best way to accomplish this migration and meet the goals given the constraints above? Absent any advice, I was going to try the following: 1) Install P3Dv2 to D: 2) Install FlightSim Estonia - FSX TO PREPAR3D MIGRATION TOOL and create virtual directories under P3Dv2 that point to corresponding directories under FSX (does the tool work this way?) 3) Enjoy P3Dv2 (leaving behind SceneryConfigEditor forever!) Thanks in advance for your help, David Oh my, more Aircraft/Scenery sales announced.....gotta run.....