Out with the W.D. Velociraptor 10,000 RPM 1TB system HD, and in, with the----> Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB...

[Orbx Flyer]

Velociraptor at 10,000 RPM, took 46 seconds to bring me onto the password screen of W10 Pro.  I have 5 W.D. high capacity MyBook USB 3 drives that run off of a REMUS PCI USB 3 card.  Stuff to bring the drivers on-line with...

 

46 seconds...

 

Removed the above and installed the Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 'wafer'...lol.

 

17 seconds....

 

I should have done this earlier...but having just paid $138.00 for it yesterday (Black Friday) showed me it was the time to jump in....

 

Runs at 32 C and of course, not a sound as the computer comes to life...for a 10,000 RPM platter tells you its there...LOL!

 

Cheers,

 

Highly Recommended...for a Cyber Monday grab and install!

[Orbx Flyer]

I should mention that the interface, is SATA III on my drive, not M.02 or PCIe.

[Sniper31]

I have been espousing the advantages of SSD's putting off much less heat than an HDD (and taking up much less space) for the last couple years, but people kept responding that a few seconds faster loading over an HDD was not worth the cost. I finally got tired of hearing that response and just gave up telling folks. You either figure it out on your own or not. 

 

Anyhow, glad to hear you have 'discovered' the advantage . SSD's and M.2 drives are pretty handy.

 

Cheers!

Landon

[B12]

WD Velociraptors, 10K spins, owned a few of them in my time, great mechanical drives, but you did the right thing and right move my friend, any sim or game now goes to one of my SSD's. For the OS I chose a luxury 250GB PCIE 4.0 NVME drive on my AMD PCIE 4.0 board and its blitzkrieg fast, really gets the OS job done fast to let my sims play and fly on my other dedicated SSD's.

One of the advantages you have probably heard, no more lengthy disk de-fragmentation down time needed any more with solid state drives, in fact on Win 10, make sure its disk de-frag service is turned off and after each big Windows upgrade check again, because they will switch it back on again without warning ... it probably wont try to de-frag an SSD ... Win 10 is quite clever now, but I choose to have it off for all drives and chose a separate after market de-frag prog for my remaining mechanical spin drives that serve for back ups ETC.

Enjoy.

[Orbx Flyer]

11 hours ago, Sniper31 said:

I have been espousing the advantages of SSD's putting off much less heat than an HDD (and taking up much less space) for the last couple years, but people kept responding that a few seconds faster loading over an HDD was not worth the cost. I finally got tired of hearing that response and just gave up telling folks. You either figure it out on your own or not. 

 

Anyhow, glad to hear you have 'discovered' the advantage . SSD's and M.2 drives are pretty handy.

 

Cheers!

Landon

Hi Landon,

Well, this being my first, I have to tell ya...WOW...ever since installing, it's like I just got a brand new 'latest tech' computer!   I mean, it really goes past the 'wow'.  17 seconds...amazing...and I am at the password screen.  Then...I use to watch my 10,000 rpm load in the icons (lots of them on my system, lol) across the Desktop. Now?  Lordy...it's simply a flash. Look away, for a second (NOT KIDDING...) and the operation is done.  

 

I will NEVER use anything else from here on, other than an SSD drive for my System Drive. 

 

As the Velociraptor 1TB was in the final stages of failing,  I had lots of time to do due diligence, and read that one should have a 1TB SSD of any format, for your System Drive, in that Windows, will take up about 335 GB's of data, along with a few other C: drive downloads you might have, and for longevity, a SSD needs room to write across as many V-NAND Cells as the drive has, to maximize its read/write cycle life.  While they said that a 500 GB SSD drive has ample room to host W10,  the better choice for technology longevity is with a 1TB. Also, that you would want, and should use Over Provisioning of at least 10 percent of the drive's storage capacity, to keep the published rated read and write speed, over the course of the drive's life.  

 

Landon,  I went from totally ignorant (literally...) of this technology, to a ten hour, read everything, be taught by Professor Google...to a 'healthy' knowledge on the subjects of SSD's...lol.  (insert HUGE SMILE!) I am now Back Yard Mechanic Certified....(Large Smile)!!!

 

You don't even need to buy the extra cost 2.5 inch, to 3.5 inch conversion holder.  One chap said to just place a few wooden coffee stir sticks across the bottom of the 3.5 HDD bay, and then place the almost-weighting 'nothing' body of the 2.5 inch SSD sitting on top of them...and that also allows great air flow totally around the upper and lower body of the 2.5 inch drive format.  Did that...and it works great! My SSD 1TB drive stays at 32C in operation read/write. Two coffee stir sticks or popsicle sticks cut to the width of your two bottom metal ledges of your 3.5 drive bay does the trick. If you want to go for the 'luxury' install...lol...use three...LOLOLOLOLOLOL!

 

So...rock and roll stability...and oh...to be accurate, for the reader...the W10 file that was getting corrupted or not written at all, and gets written each time you shut down...is call the App Data File.  That tells W10 what is associated from the Desktop, out to the computer hard drive and storage landscape. There is one more file that gets updated a few cycles, is called the System Configuration File.  That one was getting corrupted by bad, fatal cluster sectors on my Veli, as well.  So Landon, between those two, that was causing my inability to start MSFS by the blue initializing icon.  I'm sure it was causing all other sorts of problems, but were vague so were not so 'in my face', to knowbie, or understand what was perhaps going on.

 

Bottom line, call me a total-in convert...and again, would never think to use an HDD for my System Drive. Only will go with an SSD technology now and into a future build. 

 

By the way, to any reader,  because I had a critical dead sector (called fatal) hard drive failure,  I was not a candidate for a CLONE'ing of transferring my HHD to my new SSD.  Only because I had a (I do a back up image weekly, on Sunday of every week!) System Image Backup, that I could use the created W10 Emergency Start CD, to call up W10 RECOVERY and then it was a snap...it found my System Image, and brought it to, with automatically identical partitioning,  to my full W10 install and Desktop.   I highlighted that in bold, because that saved me hundreds of hours of searching for files...probably some no longer out there...etc, and doing a full virgin install of W10, and hundreds of programs!   Folks...create a System Image Back up ,  at least monthly, to assure, you can either by choice, CLONE to a new HHD, or SSD, or because of a critical and fatal HDD or SSD (they go too!) failure...you can bring back your Desktop, with a snap of your fingers. Without a System Back-Up Image...that is impossible, if your System HDD or SSD goes down...  Something to sip a coffee over and consider!

 

Cheers,

[Orbx Flyer]

7 hours ago, B12 said:

WD Velociraptors, 10K spins, owned a few of them in my time, great mechanical drives, but you did the right thing and right move my friend, any sim or game now goes to one of my SSD's. For the OS I chose a luxury 250GB PCIE 4.0 NVME drive on my AMD PCIE 4.0 board and its blitzkrieg fast, really gets the OS job done fast to let my sims play and fly on my other dedicated SSD's.

One of the advantages you have probably heard, no more lengthy disk de-fragmentation down time needed any more with solid state drives, in fact on Win 10, make sure its disk de-frag service is turned off and after each big Windows upgrade check again, because they will switch it back on again without warning ... it probably wont try to de-frag an SSD ... Win 10 is quite clever now, but I choose to have it off for all drives and chose a separate after market de-frag prog for my remaining mechanical spin drives that serve for back ups ETC.

Enjoy.

Hi B12,  actually, the research that I did, and I did literally hours of it before I dropped the hammer, is that you are right...you never de-frag any form of SSD tech.  Yes...that is right, but...having stated that, you do need for the maintenance of a SSD and for the ability of it still maintaining its read/write speed, is to use TRIM.  TRIM collects the garbage and grooms the V-NAND CELL for sequential and linear writing and reading of data. Even though there is no read/write head and arm that is mechanically moving over spinning platters such as is found in a HDD, there still is milliseconds involved in parsing though the 8 billion V-NAND Cells to write to, or bring back data to the system memory modules.  TRIM keeps this operation at prime, and healthy.  I never knew, that even something happening in milliseconds, over time, adds up to quite the hold-back figure!

 

Samsung Magician SSD software you can download from their site, has the ability to TRIM on a daily, weekly, or monthly cycle, automatically as it parses the continuing health of your SSD.  W10 (check your version!) also has the same ability in its optimize DRIVE feature, that will KNOW you have any SSD's in your system and will use TRIM, rather then HDD de-frag routines,  to clean and optimize them...and not de-frag, as it will for any HDD's you might have.  You can also set that up as daily, weekly, monthly, or as a single use by the USER. In fact, the Samsung Magician USES this feature as its TRIM function, go-to sub-routine. 

 

(To the reader, check that your version of W10 has the TRIM Optimize  feature. Earlier versions did not.)

 

So, I would suggest that you look into this perhaps, and set up your SSD's to start getting groomed by TRIM. I have mine now set up for a weekly TRIM grooming by my W10 Pro.  Yep...learned a lot about SSD's...what size to get, what on-going maintenance for read/write burst and sequential speed maintenance, the all of it.

 

Thanks' for posting the encouragement!  If by your reading the above, I was preaching to the choir...it was also to pass on what I learned to any reader, who might not, as I certainly was not...be up and up, regarding owning one...and USER maintaining one.  

 

Cheers,!

[Orbx Flyer]

BTW, having now a stable start to MSFS can be taxing on your finances...lol

 

I just picked up in the Black Friday Sale:

 

1S2

3W5

KBUR

CYLW

KSBA

 

....guess what I am going to be doing this Sunday morn...the start of "Merry Christmas to myself season.  "Fa laaa laaa laaa laaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, la la, la, laaaaaaaaaaaaaa"!    Slip into  Robert Young's  A36 v3 Turbo...from 1S2, to 3W5.  From KBUR to KSBA. From KSBA, slip into the Citation II, and head over to CYLW.   Yep..my poor wife ain't going to see much of me, today....and I LOVE November...grass cutting and hedge maintenance is off the Honey Do List!

[B12]

10 hours ago, Orbx Flyer said:

Hi B12,  actually, the research that I did, and I did literally hours of it before I dropped the hammer, is that you are right...you never de-frag any form of SSD tech.  Yes...that is right, but...having stated that, you do need for the maintenance of a SSD and for the ability of it still maintaining its read/write speed, is to use TRIM.  TRIM collects the garbage and grooms the V-NAND CELL for sequential and linear writing and reading of data. Even though there is no read/write head and arm that is mechanically moving over spinning platters such as is found in a HDD, there still is milliseconds involved in parsing though the 8 billion V-NAND Cells to write to, or bring back data to the system memory modules.  TRIM keeps this operation at prime, and healthy.  I never knew, that even something happening in milliseconds, over time, adds up to quite the hold-back figure!

 

Samsung Magician SSD software you can download from their site, has the ability to TRIM on a daily, weekly, or monthly cycle, automatically as it parses the continuing health of your SSD.  W10 (check your version!) also has the same ability in its optimize DRIVE feature, that will KNOW you have any SSD's in your system and will use TRIM, rather then HDD de-frag routines,  to clean and optimize them...and not de-frag, as it will for any HDD's you might have.  You can also set that up as daily, weekly, monthly, or as a single use by the USER. In fact, the Samsung Magician USES this feature as its TRIM function, go-to sub-routine. 

 

(To the reader, check that your version of W10 has the TRIM Optimize  feature. Earlier versions did not.)

 

So, I would suggest that you look into this perhaps, and set up your SSD's to start getting groomed by TRIM. I have mine now set up for a weekly TRIM grooming by my W10 Pro.  Yep...learned a lot about SSD's...what size to get, what on-going maintenance for read/write burst and sequential speed maintenance, the all of it.

 

Thanks' for posting the encouragement!  If by your reading the above, I was preaching to the choir...it was also to pass on what I learned to any reader, who might not, as I certainly was not...be up and up, regarding owning one...and USER maintaining one.  

 

Cheers,!

 

Hi Flyer, yes you are absolutely right, with SSD's we need TRIM, but its turned on by default in Windows and works transparently, ideal

Most of my SSD's are Samsung ones, so yep, have Samsung Magician installed, its a helpful program and can determine if any of its Samsung supported drives have the latest firmware or not, this is something that we often neglect with SSD's because they are such user friendly low maintenance devices, it can even update an OS firmware if needed for an OS drive, good bit of software, yup.

Bang up to date on Win 10 here too

Enjoy.

[Orbx Flyer]

26 minutes ago, B12 said:

 

Hi Flyer, yes you are absolutely right, with SSD's we need TRIM, but its turned on by default in Windows and works transparently, ideal

Most of my SSD's are Samsung ones, so yep, have Samsung Magician installed, its a helpful program and can determine if any of its Samsung supported drives have the latest firmware or not, this is something that we often neglect with SSD's because they are such user friendly low maintenance devices, it can even update an OS firmware if needed for an OS drive, good bit of software, yup.

Bang up to date on Win 10 here too

Enjoy.

B12...I am SO IN, on only using an SSD now for my System Drive, and into the future, until dust looks younger than me....such performance....and you don't 'know',..if you don't 'GO' to your local computer store, and pick one UP!  LOL!  Cyber Monday might be a good day to take the drive, or tap the keyboard to all the other poor souls that are running W10 on spinners.......lol.

 

About 5 minutes after I hit the Desktop,  using Samsung Magician,  my 860 EVO 1TB runs at 27C.  Then, after a few program starts, stuff...it settles in to 37C.  I just came off an MSFS Ultra setting flight over two hours live-time, and as soon as I dumped to the Desktop, fired up Magician, and noted that I was at 45C.  Lots of stuff in my system generating heat of their own.   I checked online to see what my model's safe published normal running range was...and the bottom was 32-50C after a few minutes and program accesses.  No speed throttling, or lower user life within those two figures.  My model can run without damage to 70C, but there is no guarantee that the firmware will not start throttling down until it reaches its whatever temperate 'safe' parameters.  So, with my closed case, in my den, with the house set to 72,  I guess that I am alright, with MSFS pumping at Ultra.  We keep the house in Summer months, around 78 F, so I'm interested then, to check out Magician, and see what the EVO settles into for general usage and gaming.  

 

Having a blast with my 'new' 'hotrod' computer system...lol!  Man, did I learn over the last two days, it ain't all about how fast your CPU or Memory is to give you kick-in-the-butt total system performance. I never really gave it much thought in the speed and access of files that W10 uses, per session, depending on your storage tech. I am very well AWARE of that aspect now!

 

Cheers,

 

[Jon Clarke]

There are also some reasonably priced NVME M.2 for sale. I have a couple of 1 TB NVME M.2's and they read at 3400MB/s

This is on offer at Amazon UK, but I a sure it is the same where ever you live.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=1+tb+nvme+m2&i=computers&adgrpid=103041259334&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqOfRl-Gp7QIVrYBQBh3ICAIlEAAYASAAEgJLj_D_BwE&hvadid=448304004399&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9045422&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=6662910959129281402&hvtargid=kwd-487611880695&hydadcr=4393_1795141&tag=googhydr-21&ref=pd_sl_63v568oa05_e

[Orbx Flyer]

4 hours ago, Jon Clarke said:

There are also some reasonably priced NVME M.2 for sale. I have a couple of 1 TB NVME M.2's and they read at 3400MB/s

This is on offer at Amazon UK, but I a sure it is the same where ever you live.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=1+tb+nvme+m2&i=computers&adgrpid=103041259334&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqOfRl-Gp7QIVrYBQBh3ICAIlEAAYASAAEgJLj_D_BwE&hvadid=448304004399&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9045422&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=6662910959129281402&hvtargid=kwd-487611880695&hydadcr=4393_1795141&tag=googhydr-21&ref=pd_sl_63v568oa05_e

Hi Jon,  since my Dell 730x only has the conventional SATA  interface at the four drive bays...I needed to go with the SSD internal legacy SATA format.  The M.02 interface, is also based on SATA III technology, so it pretty much is a comparable in either connection bus format.  So, good to go...but for space, if I had a more modern MB, that had the M.02 interfaces, I surely would have gone with that, so to not had to use one of my drive bays.  As it stands now...my other three drive bays each has a 4TB spinner, so I am well heeled in TB free space.

[Donka]

I bought a Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB nvme earlier in the year for £202 and it's been a fantastic drive - easy to recommend for Flight Sim use. Genuinely wouldn't go back to a traditional drive for regular use in my system and pairs nicely with my WD nvme system drive for the OS to make the whole PC feel rapid. Just a shame the MSFS 2020 load times are still so long to start with.

[B12]

On 11/30/2020 at 1:54 PM, Donka said:

I bought a Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB nvme earlier in the year for £202 and it's been a fantastic drive - easy to recommend for Flight Sim use. Genuinely wouldn't go back to a traditional drive for regular use in my system and pairs nicely with my WD nvme system drive for the OS to make the whole PC feel rapid. Just a shame the MSFS 2020 load times are still so long to start with.

Donka ... I dont find MSFS2020 that slow a loader on my rig, but was reading one tip on an another forum this morning that they swear dramatically helps, and that's to include or ... de-include I suppose your whole MS FS2020 folder from your AV, even MS's own Windows Defender ... just make sure and extra sure you trust your third party content first I suppose

No measurable difference here, but worth a try I suppose.

MS FS2020 does work in odd ways, often here for a new major patch it makes me download near the whole program again, its a known bug ... I just put up with it now

[Donka]

Yup, I have heard people recommend this in the past. I always scan new content on my machine anyway so could do this but haven’t done so far. Ordered a new cpu yesterday so that should be arriving Tuesday which may improve load times a little but it’s one of the things you need to accept with flight sims. 

[B12]

You recently bought a new AMD CPU right Donka? what have you bought now?

 

[Donka]

2 hours ago, B12 said:

You recently bought a new AMD CPU right Donka? what have you bought now?

 

Yup, bought a 5600X at launch but couldn’t get a new gpu at the time so sold it and held off until now. Just bought a 5800X with the recent price drop so will get that installed this weekend. Picked up an RTX 3070 to tide me over on the gpu side just over a week ago but it’s been an impressive jump on performance over my RTX 2070. Might end up keeping it if I can’t get a 3080 or 6800 XT anytime soon. 

[B12]

Nice one mate, let us know how you get on please.

Oh I think the NV 3080 Ti's are back on the rumour front too with 20GB ... happy here for now of course. but thats what I'd have went for. still stinging here at price of my RTX 3090, but love it too

[Donka]

Will do. I’ve seen up to 65fps with the 3070 in MSFS @ 3440x1440 high end settings but averages around the 50fps mark so quite impressed. The 2070 had me closer to 30fps. The 5080x will hopefully improve some of the main thread limits & stutters when approaching the likes of large airports or photogrammetry areas. 
Will test it all this weekend. 

[Donka]

Got a stock update this afternoon and managed to bag a RTX 3080 FE at normal price. Already dispatched so will compare the 3070 to the 3080 this weekend and feedback but given both cards cost the same, I’m more than likely going to keep the 3080. 

[Donka]

Got lucky with the timing for the 3080 as they normally sell out in seconds after a drop. Can I wait till the weekend to upgrade? 

 

[B12]

Nice match ... enjoy pal

 

[B12]

What CPU cooler will you be using out of interest?

 

[Donka]

Thanks B12. Installed the 5800X last night and been benching with the 3070 this evening. The new cpu makes a noticeable improvement but actually giving me higher frames than I was anticipating- managed to max out my monitor @ 100 FPS high settings on ultra wide in the right scenarios but typically I’m seeing 10fps higher max over the 3600 which I was not expecting. I’m pretty much always gpu bound now at high settings apart from initial spawn and approaching the big airports. 
Will test ultra settings tomorrow then swap in the 3080. 
These zen 3 cpus are very impressive. The 3600 maxed out at 4200mhz across all cores stock but the 5800x is boosting to 4850mhz across all cores straight out of the box with my Noctua cooler. Between that and the improved ipc it’s around a 34% uplift over the old cpu and that’s before you consider the additional cores.

Your 5950x must be a beast.

[Donka]

2 minutes ago, B12 said:

What CPU cooler will you be using out of interest?

 

Reusing my Noctua NH-U14S.