New PC, SSD, installing FSX & X-Plane. Help?

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New PC, SSD, installing FSX & X-Plane. Help?

Postby hughbetcha » Thu Sep 25, 2014 1:42 pm

Greetings-
I need some advice. Have you got a fairly recent, high-end type PC with an SSD? I need suggestions....

I'm building a really nice PC. Spiffy new GTX-980, "enthusiast" mobo, a screaming Haswell, 16M hot RAM, etc. I'm hoping to turn everything up to eleven, right? So, to do that I'm also putting in a 256Gb SSD in the box. I've looked at the sizes of the folders containing my FSX and X-Plane, with a lot of addon aircraft and heaps of detailed aftermarket scenery. I'll lose a chunk of that 256 just for the OS, and I hope to take best advantage of what's left.

So, the thing I'm wonderin' is, must I have ALL of FSX and X-Plane on the SSD, or can I just put those sub-folders that hold the most-often-accessed scenery and a/c on it? I'd like to put only those things that account for the most reads on the fast drive, right? Is it even possible to have a sim split onto two different drives? Enquiring minds wanna know.

So, if you've installed your FSX/X-Plane on a system sorta like this, how'd you do it? What makes the most sense when you're trying to get the mostest from the hardware? I may have to get a second SSD in a month or three, as finances permit, but it'd please the 'ol lady if I didn't need to.

What do you think?
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Re: New PC, SSD, installing FSX & X-Plane. Help?

Postby OldAirmail » Thu Sep 25, 2014 5:00 pm

I'd advise against it.

A 250/256 SSD will very quickly run out of room with the OS and either FSX or X-Plane.

My system, which can no longer be called a "fast" system, has the following;

* A 256 Samsung SSD for the OS, and any programs that give you absolutely no choice as to where to install it.

* A 1TB fast spinner (a normal HD) with a large cache.

* A second 256 SSD just for my flight sim.



The first SSD was highly rated at the time.

My old HD was a 500GB Western Digital Black very fast at the time that I originally bought it.

I cloned the Western Digital drive onto the Samsung, and kept FSX on the SSD.

I tried to install other programs to the HD.


I download a lot of scenery and the SSD started to fill up.

Another flight sim solution was needed.

I then bought a used (less than $100 at the time) Transcend 256GB SSD to add to the mix. You have to be very picky who you buy used equipment from. Because of the easy return policy, I bought it directly from Amazon, NOT A SELLER ON AMAZON!



Now I have a system with a SSD for the OS. A standard SSD for most programs. And a 256GB that is only used for my flight sim.

Evan on a relatively old system, this works out VERY, VERY well. On a fast system you'll think that you're in heaven.


BTW - SSD's are so fast that I can't tell difference between the highly rated SSD and the cheap SSD.
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Re: New PC, SSD, installing FSX & X-Plane. Help?

Postby OldAirmail » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:22 pm

"So, the thing I'm wonderin' is, must I have ALL of FSX and X-Plane on the SSD, or ..."

The "or" is very possible, but it has to be done right. You can't just drag & drop it to another drive.

Fortunately, several versions of Windows have a system built in to do what you want.



Using it, as it is within the Windows OS is not very easy though.

There is, however, a much easier way to do it - Junction Link Magic. When I downloaded this program from the authors it was FREEWARE.

Side note - the creators website (http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm)is gone. One website that has the file describs it as "freeware, BUT wants to charge you for it. Another site, Softpedia, has it for free, but some of their downloads has junk added to the download. Not viruses, just unwanted programs.



What Junction Link Magic does is to make the original folder redirect all references to another folder, ON ANOTHER DRIVE (or elsewhere).

I've been using it for over a year with absolutely no problems.

I originally used it to move the Scenery folder from the FSX folder (on the SSD), to the regular HD.

Even protected installer programs like Orbx , didn't notice.
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Re: New PC, SSD, installing FSX & X-Plane. Help?

Postby Speed of flight » Sun Oct 12, 2014 3:14 pm

I have all of my OS and FSX installed on a 250 GB SSD, and it does fit, but with the add ons, and other doodads, it does fill up quick. If it were me, I'd install 1 of the 2 on it, and put the other on a second SSD. FSX is 11+ or so GB, and X-Plane is even larger, from what I remember, so if you picked 1, for example, FSX, you're down 50 GB after the OS and FSX. After that, there's still plenty of room for your addon scenery, planes, etc, but not for both, I'd think.
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Re: New PC, SSD, installing FSX & X-Plane. Help?

Postby Blaunarwal » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:47 am

Hi

I had my FSX on a 400 GB Samsung SSD. Just recently I moved FSX on my 1 TB drive and den OS on the SSD. My FSX was about 85% of the SSD capacity.
The time win during boot of the OS is much better than the time I won starting FSX from the SSD. During flight, the stutters when FSX is loading, can't be avoided with a SSD drive, is my conclusion. That was my original intention to buy an SSD. Also raid drives do not help FSX to be faster as I could see during my trials. Now I don't have a RAID since I only got two SATA 6G connections and I need one for the fast SATA III SSD and the other for my SATA III WD Caviar Black drive. When FSX is loaded, it perform pretty the same as on the SSD

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