SSD Drive

[Pepere]

If I put FSX on a SSD "D" and have the system on a regular hard dive will I still see a mark improvement in FSX??

David

[Ferry_vO]

FsX will boot up faster, and texture loading when switching views or flying over terrain will be faster for sure, but how the sim runs still mostly depends on the processor, memory and graphics card.

[Cleartheprop]

If I put FSX on a SSD "D" and have the system on a regular hard dive will I still see a mark improvement in FSX??

David

Yes you will indeed!
I did a full re-install of FSX recently on a 500 Go SSD and FSX boots much much faster. (Win 7 is on another old fashion HD which I didn't touch.)
Same thing when I load a new aircraft from my hangar (which contains a LOT of airplanes), it is much faster than before and the old fashion HD (which was dedicated to FSX only).
Scenery textures (France VFR / OrbX and so on) load much faster as well. Really smooth FSX now.
+ due to the clean FSX installation, I haven't experienced any crash to desktop nor frozen FSX anymore.... so far ;)

Viva SSD.

[TeaSea]

I've not run FSX on an SSD, but I have put in an SSD to run my OS (Win7) and there is an improvement in doing just that. While running in the game (agree with the previous post ref graphics card and processor speed) I don't see whole lot of difference, but uploading and running various add-ins works better (REX). I will try with an SSD after I build a new computer.

I would strongly recommend an SSD for simply improving the speed of yours system's OS. It's a worthwhile investment. If you do this I would recommend a fresh install of the OS. You can do a transfer and it will likely work, but frankly you will regret it in the long run.

[Lionheart]

Its too bad you cant go dual SSD's. Windows 7 boots up in like 4 long seconds, lol. Its freaking amazing.

If you do work (like graphics, etc) then you want a 500/500 read-write. For gaming and simming, you are probably fine with 500/125 Read/write.

Samsung 840 series are about the best. They have one at 500 Gigs now, 500/500 speeds, but still pretty expensive. There are now tons of manufacturers, but 'quality counts'. Why buy a cheap SSD that will run very slow? Same as having a very fast HD. Get the best, you will thank me later. ;)

[Cleartheprop]

Its too bad you cant go dual SSD's. Windows 7 boots up in like 4 long seconds, lol. Its freaking amazing.

If you do work (like graphics, etc) then you want a 500/500 read-write. For gaming and simming, you are probably fine with 500/125 Read/write.

Samsung 840 series are about the best. They have one at 500 Gigs now, 500/500 speeds, but still pretty expensive. There are now tons of manufacturers, but 'quality counts'. Why buy a cheap SSD that will run very slow? Same as having a very fast HD. Get the best, you will thank me later. ;)
Samsung 840 was my choice (500 Go) and I am very happy happy about it.

[Ferry_vO]

Samsung 840 here too (120 gb) for me OS. Works great, but why don't they (Or any other manufacturer for that matter!) ship it with a simple mounting bracket..? Searching online I found some interesting ways to 'mount' it, including velcro and blu-tack!

Luckily I have plenty of spare screws lying around from 15 years of computer building, and I found two holes in the space above my regular HDD's and below my DVD drive:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Ferror/2013-06-01152023_zps604d0b2c.jpg~original (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/Ferror/media/2013-06-01152023_zps604d0b2c.jpg.html)

Since there are no moving parts inside an SSD two screws should be enough even if I do move my case around.

[kilo delta]

I've a couple of first gen Samsung SSD's trucking away in my olde sim pc since 2008...just laying on top of a regular 1tb hdd. No moving parts *and never had an issue with them* or their ghetto mounting.:icon_lol:







*what's the odd's on one or both going TU now?*

[jetstreamsky]

Samsung 840 here too (120 gb) for me OS. Works great, but why don't they (Or any other manufacturer for that matter!) ship it with a simple mounting bracket..? Searching online I found some interesting ways to 'mount' it, including velcro and blu-tack!

......

The OCZ Vector comes with a mounting tray that fits in a standard drive bay.

http://ocz.com/consumer/vector-7mm-sata-3-ssd

[TeaSea]

Samsung also provides a mounting kit. You can buy an 840 either with or without the kit. I spent the extra few bucks and got the kit with the 250 Gig drive. Went in in about 10 minutes, however I have a buddy who just stuck his in with a piece of double sticky tape and it works just fine.


Photo of the kit and the install:

9062990630

[Lionheart]

I used rubber bands on the other two, lol.... The primary SSD drive mounted fine to the regular area, onto one side.

A couple of pics. I had to use different cables as the ones I had wouldn't bend tight enough.

I took out the CD drive and placed 2 more SSD's in that slot. Total inside the casing; 3 840's.

Note; you can get external CD and DVD drives for around $20.00.

[Bjoern]

I have a 2011ish OCZ and am happy as a mofo.

[Odie]

I have a 2011ish OCZ and am happy as a mofo.

I'm getting ready to order a new Falcon-NW machine, and it'll have a 960 gig SSD for FSX to run off of. Seems like that's
getting to be the standard with new boxes these days.

[TeaSea]

I used rubber bands on the other two, lol.... The primary SSD drive mounted fine to the regular area, onto one side.



Brilliant!

I think what most folks who haven't messed with one of these don't realize is that they weigh almost nothing....and since there are no moving parts you can cram it into almost any handy nook. Well, as long as the cables will reach it.

[Lionheart]

Brilliant!

I think what most folks who haven't messed with one of these don't realize is that they weigh almost nothing....and since there are no moving parts you can cram it into almost any handy nook. Well, as long as the cables will reach it.


Yep... I got home after paying a MASSIVE amount of money for mine. Got the boxes out of the bag onto my desk, and they weighed nothing! My heart sunk. I thought, no... its been emptied by thieves. I opened up the box before getting back in the car and found a thick credit card sized thing in this big little box. The thickness is about the same as a iPhone 5 (thin). They do weigh nothing. It will freak you out.

[Dumonceau]

Yep, I have SSD's in all my rigs, both gamin and work. At work we decided to have the laptops for the IT dept fitted with 128 Gb SSD's and the new desktops that will be ordered will have 80 Gb SSD's as well, as storage is done on network drives.

Not only are SSD's brilliant for us gamers, but in an office enviroment they have an enormous influence on worker productivity too! For example, when I started working where I work now, we had WinXP machines with normal drives. After coming in in the morning, you would fire up your PC and immediately go to the coffee machine. When back you could just logon. With the SSD's, you boot up and no more chance for coffee! Needless to say that the waiting lines at the coffee machine in the IT dept became longer! :icon_lol:

Cheers,

Dumonceau!

[Bjoern]

I'm getting ready to order a new Falcon-NW machine, and it'll have a 960 gig SSD for FSX to run off of. Seems like that's
getting to be the standard with new boxes these days.

960 GB, sheesh!

Real men make do with 128 GB for Windows, FS9 *and* FSX. :icon_lol:


I wish I had a SSD for my laptop...no warm wrist, less weight, longer battery life, faster... *Sigh*

[Odie]

960 GB, sheesh!

Real men make do with 128 GB for Windows, FS9 *and* FSX. :icon_lol:


I wish I had a SSD for my laptop...no warm wrist, less weight, longer battery life, faster... *Sigh*

:mixedsmi: I like to hear the echo of space as it writes to the HD..... The first PC I ever bought had a 130meg harddrive (circa 1990s). My flightsim
pals asked me what I was going to do with all that space! :mixedsmi:

[Bjoern]

My flightsim pals asked me what I was going to do with all that space! :mixedsmi:

This is what I'm usually asking people with all their terabytes of storage space.

I've got 600 GB all in all, half of it being empty...

[Dumonceau]

I'm getting ready to order a new Falcon-NW machine, and it'll have a 960 gig SSD for FSX to run off of. Seems like that's
getting to be the standard with new boxes these days.

Not wanting to be impolite, but what do you guys over the pond pay for such a monster size SSD??

[Pepere]

If I use a clone software to copy all my data including FSX and operating system to a new SSD (250GB), using a USB SSD/HDD hook up, which I already have. Than replace my C drive with the new SSD Drive. Then reformat my "C" HDD drive as a "D" drive??? Would that work?

Dose anyone have any recommendations for the clone software?

Thanks

David

[kilo delta]

These were the first SSD drives that I bought back in Jan 2008 and they're still working away.. http://www.geek.com/review/review-samsung-64gb-ssd-570935/. Recently,I bought a 256gb sammy 840 and a Crucial M4 128gb for another system for less than a third of the cost of those!

[fxsttcb]

If I use a clone software to copy all my data including FSX and operating system to a new SSD (250GB), using a USB SSD/HDD hook up, which I already have. Than replace my C drive with the new SSD Drive. Then reformat my "C" HDD drive as a "D" drive??? Would that work?

Dose anyone have any recommendations for the clone software?

Thanks

DavidThat should work fine. Check with the SSD retailer/e-tailer for the cloning software. Many SSDs are also available with it bundled.
For my own puposes, I use Acronis True Image(~$50). Kinda expensive for the casual user though.
I have seen a few errors over a lot of clones, but, a reformat of the new drive, and repeat cloning operation usually fixes it...Don

[Odie]

Not wanting to be impolite, but what do you guys over the pond pay for such a monster size SSD??

With the build of the machine (Falcon's doing it top to bottom), the SSD is $585 for the 960 gig. I wasn't sure whether or not to go with it, but
after looking at some other rig-builders, the inclusion of an SSD for a gaming rig is pretty widespread. This will be the fifth machine I've bought
from them so I called their Tech Support and got their opinion and like others have said here, the speed really does work in favor of using it.

[TeaSea]

Not wanting to be impolite, but what do you guys over the pond pay for such a monster size SSD??

Not impolite at all.....It's running around $1.50 a Gig for a "normal" SSD (180 - 500 GB). Amazon has a Monster SSD (960) for right around $1.00 a Gig. My suspicion is that by this time next year, 500 GB will be the new normal, and it will be close to $1/Gig...maybe less.

by comparison a decent SATA 6 HDD is $.15 a Gig.

[Pepere]

Does it matter if I get "Notebook" clone software or "Desktop" software. I have a Desktop computer, but I can get Notebook clone software for USB 3.0. So will it mater??

These are the choice I Have so far for SSD:

SanDisk Extreme II 240 GB SATA 6.0 Gbs 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SDSSDXP-240G-G25
($229.00)



or

SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD 256 GB SATA 6.0 Gbps 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SDSSDHP-256G-G25
($170.00)



Thanks

David