The future has arrived....

[TSR2]

I've been helping a friend with some bits and pieces and he offered to pay me by buying some computer bits, so today I recieved 2 x 128GB Kingston V100 SSD... Ive just reinstalled win 7 x64 and SP1 etc and boot time to the logon screen is 14 seconds.... 14 seconds!!!! Just installing FSX and FS9 to the second drive now so can't wait to see what thats like!

[jonesey2k]

I'm just waiting before they catch up to mechanical drive's capacity before I splash out
I've got a nearly full Tb drive here...

[Effoh]

Congrats Ben...you lucky, lucky,lucky etc etc

Rgds,

Colin

[TSR2]

Just trying to restore all my FS folder and addon scenery etc which should be finished in a few hours and then I'll see. Installed the intel Rapid Storage Driver for the SATA controller and its a bit faster again. The proof of the pudding will be when I try FS and still a few hours away from that.

[austerdriver]

I bet FSX will run faster now....

[John]

Sounds like it's literally going to be a 'flying machine'

Kind regards

John

[TSR2]

To be honest guys, its making me feel old. I remember MFM hard disks. The package containing the two drives was stufeed through the letter box, and my initial thought was "he'll have damaged those drives" and then a moment later... oh, their SSD they'll be ok. Then when I opened the envelope box thingy (they came from Amazon, so you know those cardboard envelope things they use) there were two of those plastic sealed packing things that you have to cut open, the sort that you get an SD card or similar in, with a drive in each, but they weighted virtually nothing. Dont get me wrong, these ones are solid, but their is no mass to them of any note.

I connected them up to my PC, and set the drives one on top of the other while I did the installs etc. At one point I knocked against the PC case and the drive on top slid off and fell on its side. I sh@t myself, but then again, after a minute remembered these are SSD's. They are silent. Its very strange.

You have to remember that my PC is 4 years and two months old, once upon a time memory was the single component that you would upgrade to give you the biggest performace change. I'd have to say now, that these little tinkers are the new must do upgrade. I already have 4GB of RAM, albeit PC800 DDR2 so nothing startling by todays standards. The Graphic card is a Nvidia 8800GTX, which is still a great card and the CPU is a QX6700, a Quad core @ 2.66Ghz with 8MB cache.

The difference in FS isn't as totally dramatic as you might think. Load times are much quicker, both opening the Sim and loading your choice of flight, but there is still a fair bit of number crunching being done by the cpu which is taking time, more than I thought to be honest,

In the sim, there is a heck of a difference, at heathrow with my own custom AI (comprising of VC10's, Tridents, Argosys, 1-11's etc and some WOAI stuff for the non Brits) stutters are so much less pronounced, its smoother.... much smoother, even when flying over 9R in a Hunter at 350kts. Thats with all of my custom BA AI and 30% of the WOAI stuff. Previously... well, I just coulsn't have done that.

In short, I'm actually somewhat in awe of these two 2.5 inch rectangles that weigh nothing cost £150 a pop and have made such a huge difference to my pc.... I feel very old

[austerdriver]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the SSD drives Ben. Just one question for you, what brand are the SSD drives?

[DanKH]

Kingston he said ....

What about your old drive(s) then Ben.... did you keep them, or what?

Would there be any problems installing 4 256GB's? as I can see the don't fill much?

Did you install them internally or externally?

[TSR2]

Hi Jim,

The ones I went for were Kingston Drives, SSD Now 100V 128GB.

Reasons were...
1. 250MB read and 230MB write which is pretty decent
2. 3 Year warranty
3. Decent brand
4. Relatively cheap, £152 for each drive including VAT and delivery.

I know there are faster drives out there, but I couldn't justify any more expense. I knows these don't do the new SATA 6GB standard, but thats fine as I wanted to breath life into my existing PC.