Dadtom65 Posted November 3, 2017 Share Posted November 3, 2017 Just one question, I have just read about the new scenery for XP11 being developed and some one mentioned about the speed loading photo scenery. Is it possible to use an external 2TB hard drive for scenery and would that drive be fast enough to load such scenery. It was just that JV said ssd's are getting cheaper now and they are, but a 2TB ssd internal drive is still over £500 and i'm dam sure I can not afford some thing like that on my pension. Sorry starting to rant a bit. Derek. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 I have no idea about the new XP scenery but.....I use a 10,000 RPM Western Digital Velociraptor with Megascenery 4x and it works just fine. I firmly believe that any scenery that requires a SSD isn't worth considering. I'd never buy it.........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulb Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 I think that a SSD is a nice to have - if you can afford it. It is not an essential. You can get a fast internal 2TB HD in the UK for about £115. I would suggest that you look at an internal drive in preference to an external drive for scenery. You can run scenery from an external drive, but I think that the internal drive offers a better price/performance ratio for scenery. External drives are ideal for backup copies or data storage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 Darn. I'm on a trip and can't get at the numbers I recorded from a quick study I did regarding load times on various drive types. I compared the Megascenery load times on an internal 7200 RPM HDD, three external USB3 HDD's (5400, 7200, and 10000 RPM), and internal SSD and an external SSD. All the external drives were bare drives mounted in a USB3 docking station. Here's how they ranked from slowest loading to fastest loading: 5400 RPM External HDD 7200 RPM External HDD 7200 RPM Internal HDD 10000 RPM External HDD External SSD Internal SSD I find of interest two things.....the 10000 RPM external HDD load times were faster than than the 7200 RPM internal HDD times and that the load times for the external SSD were faster than the internal HDD. But.....(there are always one of those) all that being said, once the sim (both FSX and P3D) finished the initial load I could see NO noticeable difference between any of these drives in-game. Nada, none, zilch, zero noticeable difference. My conclusion? It really doesn't matter what drive configuration I use for the scenery. All mileage is, of course, variable..... Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulb Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 1 hour ago, Triplane said: Darn. I'm on a trip and can't get at the numbers I recorded from a quick study I did regarding load times on various drive types. I compared the Megascenery load times on an internal 7200 RPM HDD, three external USB3 HDD's (5400, 7200, and 10000 RPM), and internal SSD and an external SSD. All the external drives were bare drives mounted in a USB3 docking station. Here's how they ranked from slowest loading to fastest loading: 5400 RPM External HDD 7200 RPM External HDD 7200 RPM Internal HDD 10000 RPM External HDD External SSD Internal SSD I find of interest two things.....the 10000 RPM external HDD load times were faster than than the 7200 RPM internal HDD times and that the load times for the external SSD were faster than the internal HDD. But.....(there are always one of those) all that being said, once the sim (both FSX and P3D) finished the initial load I could see NO noticeable difference between any of these drives in-game. Nada, none, zilch, zero noticeable difference. My conclusion? It really doesn't matter what drive configuration I use for the scenery. All mileage is, of course, variable..... Doug You make a fair point Doug. With a full USB 3.0 connection, then the actual speed of the drive can be the defining factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gypsy Pilot Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 4 hours ago, Triplane said: Darn. I'm on a trip and can't get at the numbers I recorded from a quick study I did regarding load times on various drive types. I compared the Megascenery load times on an internal 7200 RPM HDD, three external USB3 HDD's (5400, 7200, and 10000 RPM), and internal SSD and an external SSD. All the external drives were bare drives mounted in a USB3 docking station. Here's how they ranked from slowest loading to fastest loading: 5400 RPM External HDD 7200 RPM External HDD 7200 RPM Internal HDD 10000 RPM External HDD External SSD Internal SSD I find of interest two things.....the 10000 RPM external HDD load times were faster than than the 7200 RPM internal HDD times and that the load times for the external SSD were faster than the internal HDD. But.....(there are always one of those) all that being said, once the sim (both FSX and P3D) finished the initial load I could see NO noticeable difference between any of these drives in-game. Nada, none, zilch, zero noticeable difference. My conclusion? It really doesn't matter what drive configuration I use for the scenery. All mileage is, of course, variable..... Doug Doug, Last Christmas I gave myself a 500Gb SSD connected to the motherboard via SATA and now run my all of my V4 files from it. It seems like the game load times are almost half of what they were when everything was on the hard drive. You are right, the drive has nothing to do with how fast the sim runs, that is controlled by the processor/memory combination. If everyone would think of the drive as a dump truck whose sole purpose is to fill up the PC's memory with the sims code and then retrieve it when the PC is through with it might help them understand why the drive does not affect how fast the game runs. As long as the machine has enough installed memory to accept all of the program's code, the drive speed has no effect on game speed. In the old days when installed memory was limited, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_limit), drive speed was important because the program had to keep swapping out the code to run the program. This has never been a problem with P3D because those old platforms could not run it. The only thing that drive speed effects now is that it answers the question, "Do I have enough time to get that second cup of coffee?" Dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Stirling Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 5 hours ago, Triplane said: But.....(there are always one of those) all that being said, once the sim (both FSX and P3D) finished the initial load I could see NO noticeable difference between any of these drives in-game. Nada, none, zilch, zero noticeable difference. This is absolutely the case. Outside of extreme edge cases, once you have a flight loaded, the drive you are using won't matter one bit. This won't necessarily remain the case if you slew your flight large distances in a short time, but for normal flying the sim has more than ample time to stream in new resources as the flight progresses. The necessity of an SSD for flight simming is really going to come down to load times. Personally, as someone who obsessively tweaks setting, I find myself spending a lot of time loading and reloading the sim, so I value having things on an SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dadtom65 Posted November 4, 2017 Author Share Posted November 4, 2017 Thanks guys for that. I have been thinking of getting a new 2TB internal drive mainly for scenery storage and with what you guys have explained to me, that will do nicely. Derek. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 Hello Derek, based on all the good advice here, I might suggest that you go for a more future proof 3 TB drive. For example, Amazon have them for just under £70. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dadtom65 Posted November 4, 2017 Author Share Posted November 4, 2017 Thank you Nick, will check that out. Derek. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fltsimguy Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 I actually am using a 5TB external drive to store my XP11 ortho photo data, and my sim flies great...I have no idea about speeds and details just know it works fine my XP is smooth and performs better than P3DV4 loaded with Orbx land and I have setting set almost to max in every category and moderate AI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giletto Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 If you ask me directly, I will tell you that it's better to get an SSD. Believe me, I use HDD (including external) and would not advise you to contact them if you want to do your work and process processes quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack the Swede in Spain Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 17 minutes ago, Giletto said: If you ask me directly, I will tell you that it's better to get an SSD. Believe me, I use HDD (including external) and would not advise you to contact them if you want to do your work and process processes quickly. Giletto, an SSD is only a benefit for initial loading of the sim (shorter loading time) and makes NO difference (when it comes to performance when the sim is started) compared to an internal HDD. IMHO, an SSD is a waste of money to use for the sim as you can buy a 4TB HDD for less than 500 GB SSD. Jack the Swede in Spain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gypsy Pilot Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 A good solution to slow load times is to start the load and then go get a cup of your favorite beverage. Dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Colin M Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 18 hours ago, Giletto said: If you ask me directly, I will tell you that it's better to get an SSD. Believe me, I use HDD (including external) and would not advise you to contact them if you want to do your work and process processes quickly. Long Live SSD's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.