tim_A Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 A nice shiny new SSD drive arrived today (128 GB Crucial M225). It was awarded 81% and "Premium Grade" in last month's Custom PC mag group test, and "best bang per buck". I couldn't find it for the price they quoted -- the best price I found was from Novatech, and about £20 more. But I see from their web site the price has risen another £30 since I ordered mine! (is this the poor dollar exchange rate or something else?) So, tomorrow, it's going to go into my i7 beast as the new System drive, with Windows 7 on it. I have no idea how this will go, or how well it'll perform -- I'll report back. The Beast currently has 2 x Samsung Spinpoint 1TB drives, spliit between OS / FSX / FS9 / Data (each partitioned as 2 x 500GB). What I'm not quite sure, is how best to use these. Should I raid them up (as Raid 0 or 1)? or keep them separate? Will there be sufficient performance increase from the RAID to offset the extra risk of a drive failure? (I presume it's like a twin engined plane -- two engines are "better" but at more than twice the risk of engine failure!) Initially, if I RAID them, it'll be on the MOBO controller. Could I transfer to a separate controller later without losing data? Is a separate controller of sufficient benefit to make it worth the cost and effort (Adaptec ones are *very* expensive, compared to say, a "Novatech own brand"...) The only experience I have of RAID is in my NAS box, which is not exactly performance critical! My FSX install is around 160GB, so no way is it going to fit on the SSD. I generally prefer to keep it all together, but if, say I were to split it, would there be an advantage to having some of it on the SSD (can you partition an SSD?), and if so, what parts/how much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgruschow Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 I have had my SSD for about three months. I is a 300 GB OCX. I have partitioned it into two drives. C: has the OS and D: has FSX etc. It is smooth and runs FSX near perfectly. My only question is , is it running an exta $1500 better than the Veliraptor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim_A Posted October 28, 2009 Author Share Posted October 28, 2009 Well, predictably I suppose, the longest amount of time was spend re-looming the cables and making it all neat! It went like a charm. W7 installed in 20 minutes flat. I've RAIDed up the Spinpoints, and that was straightforward too. In fact the only annoyance was having to reassign the plethora of drive letters that Windows assigns to the "15-million-in-One Card Reader" that you can't seem to avoid having in a PC these days! As far as where to put FSX goes, well FTX has made that decision for me, since it's the only addon I have that won't play nice, and insists on going in the FS root folder. Of course I'd already installed FSX on the SSD and 150GB of scenery when I discovered this, so off it had to come, and I called it by several names ending in "ing"! (Actually it would still fit right now, but at the rate FTX is expanding, and given the massive size being claimed for PNW, it ain't gonna fit for long, so better to move it all now while I've still got the discs out) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgruschow Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 As far as where to put FSX goes, well FTX has made that decision for me, since it's the only addon I have that won't play nice, and insists on going in the FS root folder. Of course I'd already installed FSX on the SSD and 150GB of scenery when I discovered this, so off it had to come, and I called it by several names ending in "ing"! What's with 150 gb of scenery? I have FSX, full Orbx and OZx plus a few extras and the whole lot uses only 30 GB's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milamber Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 With Generation X UK Photoscenery taking up around 80GB then Germany VFR - North South East and West Regions being 4 DVD's apiece, Austria Pro and Switzerland X [all photoscenery] the 150 GB of scenery is easily "blown". That's why I have a VFR build, an FTX build and a "Various" build all resident on a triple boot PC. The FTX build also accomodates Ultimate Terrain Europe + a handful of other non photo sceneries. Mind Boggling Maurice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenicoll Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 Hi Maurice, You can put Horizons UK VFR Scenery on a seperate drive from FSX...thats what I do!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milamber Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 Hello Dave, Yes, exactly what I do with FSX et al. 3 copies of FSX, 3 of Windows on 6 internal disks. This is then on triple boot with FSX Photo, FTX and "other". Keeps everything nicely separated. Since the Win 7 release, I have been f@rting around with SSD's and have now got Photo and FTX builds ready with the last scheduled for tomorrow. The "photo" build is rather large though, resident on a 250GB OCZ Vertex. Maurice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arismac Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 Some may remember that I am building for FSX. Am still waiting on the Colossus 500GB SSD. If I have the choice should I be going for two 256GB SSD's and if so how would I distribute major software ie: FSX, SDK, REX2, MyTraffic, ORBX. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marshkop Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 I have fsx on my raptor, and rex on my 700gb with xp64 runs great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim_A Posted November 1, 2009 Author Share Posted November 1, 2009 What's with 150 gb of scenery? I have FSX, full Orbx and OZx plus a few extras and the whole lot uses only 30 GB's As Maurice said, a few photo sceneries will blow that easily. Most Photo scenery now is 1 metre/pixel (in FS9 it was 5m/pixel), so you have England at 70GB, Germany at 80GB, and bang it's gone. (there's also Spain and Italy available at over 100GB each... ) If you were collecting the USA stuff, you could even be getting into Terrabytes... And now large sceneries are being made at 60cm (e.g. Scotland), 15cm sceneries have been announced, and of course OrbX have 7cm airports. This is why people get dedicated discs to put their scenery on, and it's also why the OrbX requirement to install EVERYTHING inside the main FSX folder is so bad, since while it may be okay now (My OrbX stuff is only around 20GB, but I don't have much of the new stuff. But when PNW is released I can see it going over 50GB *very* rapidly), in the long term it's just a disaster waiting to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milamber Posted November 1, 2009 Share Posted November 1, 2009 I, too, would welcome the opportunity to install scenery where *I* would like it to go and, as Tim identifies, we are already approaching the Terrabyte size. Please Orbx, give some consideration to this important issue. FS Global 2010, which I ordered last night, is advertised at "The World on 12 DVDs" and this is only Mesh Maurice. ps - Massive Scenery for FSX - The American West now available at only 155 Gigabytes. The delivery mechanism is HDD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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