Hard Drive Suggestions?

[James Annis]

Hi all,

I currently have a 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD but this is nearing capacity. I’m thinking about alternatives or additional drives what would you guys suggest? Does it matter what drive P3D/Windows/other addons  run on? 

Thanks

James

[Robin Locher]

If you buy one you should buy a SSD again. It is better if you buy a big SSD where you have Windows and P3D maybe 500GB, and 500 GB or more, where you can load other games on it, and videos 

[Sabine Meier]

I would keep windows and p3d/tools on two ssd’s. I would take at least 500gb minimum for p3d. That way you have plenty of spare room.

[Markus Burkhard]

One has to be careful here; There are many different breeds of SSD, with different characteristics and most important for flying, different read and file access speeds.

So there's a huge difference between buying a SATA SSD and a PCIe M.2 SSD. The latter is vastly superior to anything SSD you attach to the SATA interface. However, one has to be careful as to not overload the available PCIe lanes featured on your chipset/mainboard/CPU.

So James, if your mainboard allows, buy a second M.2 SSD and put P3D on to the bigger of the two. If your mainboard does not allow for a 2nd such device, buy a SATA SSD and put windows on it, so that you can run P3D on the M.2 SSD.
Or if money is of no concern at all, buy Intel Optane and go crazy with that 

[James Annis]

2 hours ago, Markus Burkhard said:

One has to be careful here; There are many different breeds of SSD, with different characteristics and most important for flying, different read and file access speeds.

So there's a huge difference between buying a SATA SSD and a PCIe M.2 SSD. The latter is vastly superior to anything SSD you attach to the SATA interface. However, one has to be careful as to not overload the available PCIe lanes featured on your chipset/mainboard/CPU.

So James, if your mainboard allows, buy a second M.2 SSD and put P3D on to the bigger of the two. If your mainboard does not allow for a 2nd such device, buy a SATA SSD and put windows on it, so that you can run P3D on the M.2 SSD.
Or if money is of no concern at all, buy Intel Optane and go crazy with that 

Thanks for your reply. I only have space for one M.2 - would you say it is more important to run Windows on the M.2 or P3D?

Thanks

James

[Markus Burkhard]

It is better to have P3D on your M.2 SSD then, since during a flight the system will continuously read new files from your P3D folders such as BGL files and textures. On the other hand very little needs to be loaded from windows once the simulator is up and running. There ARE things to be read from C: though, so don't put Windows on a 5600rpm HDD  

[Matthew Webb]

Agree with above - also, if you have the space, throw your temp directory and page file on the M.2 SSD.

[Phil Brewer]

Great point. I recently did this and it not only helped with storage etc but my system runs more smoothly now.

[Massimo Solimbergo]

Hi guys!

Just a question: it's better (in terms of performance) to have a SSD RAID 0 on SATA or 1 SSD M2 ? 

Because now I have a RAID 0 SSD attached on SATA and performance is good. This weekend I'll update my PC with the new I7 9700K and I don't know if maintain this raid config or buy a single M2 SSD.

Thanks a lot for any advice!

Bye, Max

[James Annis]

I’m no expert but from what I have been reading a PCIe M.2 SSD is a lot faster. 

[Bob Zolto]

Best advice on hardware updates is to investigate thoroughly and then get the best you can afford.

[Markus Burkhard]

Massimo, 

the newest M.2 NVMe SSD drives are massively faster compared to SATA, even compared to RAID0. So if you can afford it, it would fit nicely with your 9700K.

[Massimo Solimbergo]

Hi guys!

Thanks a lot for your advice! I bought the Samsung 970 Pro and yes, it's faster then my previous SSD Raid 

Now it's time to re-install all my system!

Bye, Max