Sim storage on SSD or NVME

[CanadaOne]

Hello,

 

Given the speed of SSD and NVME storage, is there any benefit to keeping a flightsim on its own SSD or NVME?

 

Would having Il2 - for example - on it's own 250GB SSD be the same as having it with everything else on a 1 or 2TB SSD or NVME?

 

(I know that larger SSDs are a bit faster than smaller ones, but that notwithstanding.)

[dburne]

Basically yeah.

Me personally I prefer to install my games outside of the c/Program Files/ folder in Windows 10.

Like C:/1C Game Studios/, or D:/1C Game Studios/. I generally put my larger games outside of the  C drive, I have my flight sims on drive D:, a 1 TB Nvme m2 drive.

 

[Bullets]

I have my main games & windows all on a 1tb NVME drive and then lesser played games on a SSD 

[CanadaOne]

17 minutes ago, dburne said:

Basically yeah.

Me personally I prefer to install my games outside of the c/Program Files/ folder in Windows 10.

Like C:/1C Game Studios/, or D:/1C Game Studios/. I generally put my larger games outside of the  C drive, I have my flight sims on drive D:, a 1 TB Nvme m2 drive.

 

 

Thanks. I was wondering about that.

 

I have IL2 and DCS on one 500GB SSD now, but I was thinking of getting an NVME drive for the system/boot on a new PC. I was wondering if it was the same or better to have everything on a big fat SSD or NVME, 1 or 2 TB, of to keep things separated.

 

[dburne]

4 minutes ago, CanadaOne said:

 

Thanks. I was wondering about that.

 

I have IL2 and DCS on one 500GB SSD now, but I was thinking of getting an NVME drive for the system/boot on a new PC. I was wondering if it was the same or better to have everything on a big fat SSD or NVME, 1 or 2 TB, of to keep things separated.

 

 

I have three 1TB drives, two are Nvme m.2, and one is SATA SSD.

I have most games on my second Nvme and the SATA SSD. I have a few oculus games on  C drive, outside of that program files folder.

I just have mine spread out some to allow plenty of room for growth on each drive.

Edited June 18, 2020 by dburne

[CanadaOne]

17 minutes ago, dburne said:

 

I have three 1TB drives, two are Nvme m.2, and one is SATA SSD.

I have most games on my second Nvme and the SATA SSD. I have a few oculus games on  C drive, outside of that program files folder.

I just have mine spread out some to allow plenty of room for growth on each drive.

 

That's good storage. I was looking at the XPG 8200, good reviews and cheaper than a 970. But I'd still like a 970.

 

Right now I have a 256GB SSD boot, a 500GB SSD with IL2 and DCS, and 1Tb full of por.... uh... portraits, of... civilization as done by artists of yesteryear.

 

Maybe I'll keep the same setup and just add a 500GB NVME for FS2020. Something like that.

[ATAG_SKUD]

Be careful with older Samsung stuff. I bought a 960 and found out it is not compatible with computers.

skud

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

6 hours ago, CanadaOne said:

Given the speed of SSD and NVME storage, is there any benefit to keeping a flightsim on its own SSD or NVME?

 

If we're talking about speed, giving files their own NVMe SSD is generally the best.

 

In typical gaming scenarios, however, the difference between any setups with decent SATA or NVMe SSDs is marginal. I'd just go with whatever is convenient and has good value.

 

2 hours ago, ATAG_SKUD said:

Be careful with older Samsung stuff. I bought a 960 and found out it is not compatible with computers.

 

Make sure that your motherboard has enough M.2 sockets.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Mitthrawnuruodo

[ATAG_SKUD]

It's in a slot next to the 970s that work fine

[jaydee]

Canada, to answer the Question you asked. No. If you have the game on an SSD already ,you are fine...Some of the comments above get very Complicated for Neglible Return. (Not to mention the Waste of  money. ) ..For example, If you add another Expensive NVme drive, can your motherboard run Both (without Sharing Lanes ) ? ...SSD and you are fine ! ~S~

[w00dy]

1 hour ago, jaydee said:

Canada, to answer the Question you asked. No. If you have the game on an SSD already ,you are fine...Some of the comments above get very Complicated for Neglible Return. (Not to mention the Waste of  money. ) ..For example, If you add another Expensive NVme drive, can your motherboard run Both (without Sharing Lanes ) ? ...SSD and you are fine ! ~S~

 

jaydee is correct, you would not notice the difference, in game load times. Though having games stored on a seperate drive, saves hassle when you have to reinstall windows and it's the way I have my system setup. It's just more convenient and you don't have to worry about backing up Box files when you do a fresh windows install.

 

If you was coming from a mechanical drive, it would be a different story.

Edited June 18, 2020 by w00dy

[CanadaOne]

1 hour ago, jaydee said:

Canada, to answer the Question you asked. No. If you have the game on an SSD already ,you are fine...Some of the comments above get very Complicated for Neglible Return. (Not to mention the Waste of  money. ) ..For example, If you add another Expensive NVme drive, can your motherboard run Both (without Sharing Lanes ) ? ...SSD and you are fine ! ~S~

 

It's tough being a flightsim-head. We are the kind of people who are often willing spend a lot of money for a small performance gain. Started with me back in the Stone Age when I bought an 80GB HDD just for FSX.

 

 

 

 

[w00dy]

I know what you mean, with my very first pc I paid £135 for 4mb of ram!  To upgrade it to 8mb so I could play doom better ? 

[robbiec]

NVMe all the way. SSD are defunct except for slow storage. The way Win 10 and latest AV or ATP are going, it is exceptionally hard on I/O and will only get worse. I generally recommend NVMe with TLC chips as it soon starts to cost serious money for MLC & SLC. NVMe with QLC chips will be the new slow storage. Looking forward to getting the new Samsung 980s when they show up in Aug. PCIe4 so AMD B550 or X570 but a good uptick on the current PCIe3 stuff which taps out at 3.5GB/s for headline figures but look closely at how they perform Iops wise in Desktop config 

[Alonzo]

If anyone has actual benchmark numbers of SSD against NVMe for IL2, that would be great. Otherwise I think the advice to spend more money for any reason other than more space or more convenience (e.g. separate drive so you can reinstall windows more easily) is poor advice.

 

These threads come up repeatedly, and so far I have yet to see figures showing any discernible performance improvement for IL2.

[robbiec]

7 hours ago, Alonzo said:

If anyone has actual benchmark numbers of SSD against NVMe for IL2, that would be great. Otherwise I think the advice to spend more money for any reason other than more space or more convenience (e.g. separate drive so you can reinstall windows more easily) is poor advice.

 

These threads come up repeatedly, and so far I have yet to see figures showing any discernible performance improvement for IL2.

 

What sort of benchmark? Start times? Mission load times? Or during play? During play you should be mainly RAM, CPU &  GPU bound, you won't see or feel it. Starting and loading you will. Storage is the slowest part of your overall machine makeup, if you want a snappy experience everywhere - speed up your storage. 

Here is an extreme example: An accountant spec'd machine for office use:

 

 

Tweaked by me for €70 (that was the difference in price after re-specifying)

 

 

And something that would be there or thereabouts for someone on here, that is not a pure gaming setup.

 

 

 

S!

Edited June 19, 2020 by robbiec

[CanadaOne]

Hmmmm, they still seem to perform within a few percentage points of SSDs in the real world.

 

I wonder if you end up with less frame rate drops though?

 

 

 

[RedKestrel]

 

3 hours ago, CanadaOne said:

Hmmmm, they still seem to perform within a few percentage points of SSDs in the real world.

 

I wonder if you end up with less frame rate drops though?

 

 

 

Would a slow HDD even result in frame rate drops? Unless your system RAM is overflowing into your hard drive I can't imagine it would. And if that is happening, then you are probably far better off investing in more RAM than a hard drive.


 

[CanadaOne]

1 hour ago, RedKestrel said:

 

Would a slow HDD even result in frame rate drops? Unless your system RAM is overflowing into your hard drive I can't imagine it would. And if that is happening, then you are probably far better off investing in more RAM than a hard drive.


 

 

I've heard that an HDD can give you stutters that an SSD would not, but I can't say that from personal experience. But it would seem to make sense.

 

Anyway, I have 32GB RAM going into a new system.

[Alonzo]

5 hours ago, robbiec said:

What sort of benchmark? Start times? Mission load times? Or during play? During play you should be mainly RAM, CPU &  GPU bound, you won't see or feel it. Starting and loading you will. Storage is the slowest part of your overall machine makeup, if you want a snappy experience everywhere - speed up your storage.

 

Yes. An actual IL2 benchmark. Of whatever people think will show a disk-speed difference in real-world usage. Maybe that's mission load time?

 

You, and others, keep linking to either synthetic benchmarks that tell us nothing about IL2, or saying things like "snappy performance" which is subjective. I don't mean to be hostile but there's no point posting synthetics.

 

I agree that moving to SSD over HDD gives improved snappiness and overall happiness. I've yet to see anything that convinces me certain types of SSD are worth the extra cash.

[RedKestrel]

24 minutes ago, CanadaOne said:

 

I've heard that an HDD can give you stutters that an SSD would not, but I can't say that from personal experience. But it would seem to make sense.

 

Anyway, I have 32GB RAM going into a new system.

Just install Il-2 straight onto the RAM lol!

[robbiec]

35 minutes ago, Alonzo said:

 

Yes. An actual IL2 benchmark. Of whatever people think will show a disk-speed difference in real-world usage. Maybe that's mission load time?

 

You, and others, keep linking to either synthetic benchmarks that tell us nothing about IL2, or saying things like "snappy performance" which is subjective. I don't mean to be hostile but there's no point posting synthetics.

 

I agree that moving to SSD over HDD gives improved snappiness and overall happiness. I've yet to see anything that convinces me certain types of SSD are worth the extra cash.

 

I might be able to do some timings on a NVMe setup vs a RAID1 HDD setup. The best example I can give personally is of a rollout of FireEye ATP in an Enterprise environment. We were running heavy scans and real-time monitoring of all I/O (memory and disk) - The HDD laptops were all replaced, circa 1500 units within 3 months and SSD specified. When Outlook or Excel takes over 1 minute to load, people get peeved. SSDs improved that to circa 10 to 15 seconds. This would have been over 3 years ago so few supported NVMe available as options at build at that stage for reasonable money (about €1500). As I was / am in IT, the first thing I did was open it up, throw in a Samsung 960 Pro and I was back to under 2 seconds opening those apps. We changed vendor and the temporary fixes were replaced yet again with NVMe and dual channel memory 12 months later.

[Alonzo]

9 hours ago, robbiec said:

I might be able to do some timings on a NVMe setup vs a RAID1 HDD setup.

 

But that's not the comparison we need to make. It's "cheap SSD" vs "fancy NVMe expensive SSD" (and possibly all the stuff in between -- I don't keep up but there's lots of flavors and specs). I'm not arguing that in 2020 anyone should be using spinning rust ? Just that getting a more basic solid state drive will put cash in your pocket that you can spend on a component that will make your rig faster for every single rendered frame. $50 extra on a midrange GPU will have a measurable effect, $50 extra on a fancier SSD probably doesn't.

 

Sure, lots of people just wanna get the best thing, and that's fine. But even on a $2000 budget you gotta make some tradeoffs.

[jaydee]

6 hours ago, Alonzo said:

 

But that's not the comparison we need to make. It's "cheap SSD" vs "fancy NVMe expensive SSD" (and possibly all the stuff in between -- I don't keep up but there's lots of flavors and specs). I'm not arguing that in 2020 anyone should be using spinning rust ? Just that getting a more basic solid state drive will put cash in your pocket that you can spend on a component that will make your rig faster for every single rendered frame. $50 extra on a midrange GPU will have a measurable effect, $50 extra on a fancier SSD probably doesn't.

 

Sure, lots of people just wanna get the best thing, and that's fine. But even on a $2000 budget you gotta make some tradeoffs.

Alonzo, couldn't agree more...SSD (any),Fastest CPU Frequency and Fastest(you can afford) Low Latency Ram . Il2 runs great. Loading times can be one or two seconds . Big deal !..I think where some folks get confused is when it comes to Resolutions, VR and their Graphic Settings....For example," Stutters  must be a Slow SSD". ..Not "Lack of GPU Power" at the selected RES, Or the Monitor/VR  requirements....The Fast NVMe is not going to make much Difference at 4k on GTX 1060 or equivelant !

[jollyjack]

Tip on the new EVO M.2:

Bought a Samsung 970 evo plus NVMe M.2 - 2 TB, and it ran quite hot, i mesured 65 celsius with Samsung Magician.

other differing forum reports were even above 70 celcius.

 

Spent a lot of time positioning, heatsinks and xtra fans etc.

Lucky me i had an already taken special slot with heatsinks on my MSI Ace board.

Put the new hot-running 2TB it in there instead of my old 1TB M.2, and now the temp sticks around 35-37 celcius ...

the old 1TB M.2 now resides in another slot, with a heatsink added, 35 celcius steady.

[ICDP]

I think it is worth mentioning that most games use non-sequential read/writes during actual gameplay.  So the difference between a high priced NVMe drive and a cheapish SSD would be negligble at best, because most high speed NVMe drives are only really beneficial for sequential read/writes.  I moved from a 512GB SSD to a much faster (on paper) 1TB NVMe drive for games and saw zero increase in performance.  Load times may be a tad quicer but we are talking a second or two at best.

 

There is absolutely ZERO tangible benefit to having a dedicated NVMe or SSD for IL2 BoX.  Just have a separate games SSD will be fine.

 

I have worked in IT for 30+ years would always advocate a separate drive for OS and applications, another for games and a final large drive (mechanical is OK) for data.  My experience shows that OS corruption is by far the biggest cuase for data loss because people keep their main files/games on their OS drive.  Phyisical failure of an SSD is rare but an OS can fail very easily if an update fails for example, or your CPU/RAM overclock corrupts your OS install.

• So a minimum 256GB SSD NVMe for OS and applications.  This helps keep your OS feeling slick.
• 1TB inexpensive SSD for games.  Super expensive NVMe drives do nothing for games beyond normal SSD speeds.
• 2TB cheap SSD or Mechanical drive for data/backup
• Cloud backup/storage for your essential files/backup

You can even specify where your "My Documents" is located if you want to ensure this is not lost if your OS gets corrupted.  From the Explorer view > Right Click the Documents Folder > Select the Properties option > click on Location and specify a different drive.

 

With these steps fresh install or recovering your OS is a breeze because you have essentially zero files to try and recover.  This is why I prefer Steam as my game app, when you reinstall Steam after an OS reinstall it simply sees your existing locally installed games drive.  XBOX Game Pass, EA, Epic, Uplay will force you to download a game you already have installed.

Edited March 25, 2021 by ICDP

[Livai]

On 6/19/2020 at 12:17 PM, CanadaOne said:

Hmmmm, they still seem to perform within a few percentage points of SSDs in the real world.

 

I wonder if you end up with less frame rate drops though?

 

 

 

 

This video, useless

 

First M.2 SSDs using PCI-E 4.0 is a huge Performance boost compared to PCI-E 3.0. Next year maybe PCI-E 5.0 comes? Ofcourse are these M.2 SSDs a lot faster and better than SATA SSDs. But how much you use this Performance. Installing Windows, Programs, image/video editing, rendering or zip/unzip archive every day? 

 

-> Only in Games what using the "DirectStorage API" you will see indeed a huge benefit from really fast M.2 SSDs

 

BTW you pretty easy see how much MB/s use a Game the same way how you mensure the FPS in Games. If it goes to 550 MB/s then you can start to think about M.2 SSDs for Games. All the Games what I play never go above 400 MB/s. 

 

And when you think M.2 SSD help to avoid frame drops, bad programing leads to frame drops and bad fps. You will benefit more from better programing then from a M.2 SSD, plain and simple.

 

HDDs are still good as storage where speed doesn't matter.

 

 

 

[CanadaOne]

13 minutes ago, Livai said:

 

This video, useless.

 

I guess you spent the ten-months since I posted that doing tests.

 

I applaud your dedication. 

[CUJO_1970]

I’m following IDCP advice in my new build - he has made the most practical sense to me.