HDD to SSD

[Chocorua 112]

Gurus, I'm thinking of moving FSX from a 640GB WD (64mb cache) HDD to an SSD (128GB) drive, possibly Intel or Crucial. This is a fairly recent installation of FSX and I'd like to clone the HDD to the SSD using WD's Acronis software. Also, Windows 7 64-bit lives on it's own WD HDD drive. Wondering if anyone has any input, experience, thoughts on this transition. Does it make performance sense to use one HDD with one SSD? I've done some exploring on forums and it seems reasonable. Further down the road I may add another SSD for Windows. I appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.cheers,Greg G

[Kosta 122]

I bought Corsair Nova 128GB at Amazon and been testing it since yesterday. My current config is 7200rpm (W7) + 10000rpm (FSX). I am sending it back. The difference isn't worth the money. I tested both W7 and FSX on the SSD, while loading of the flight is a somewhat better, that's it. FSX menu feels a bit less sluggish, and when W7 on it, I see there is a faster boot (but not instant as some would hope), but that's it too. First time I open Outlook, it's faster alright. And subsequent opening, same as on 7200rpm. I see no difference in gerenal work under W7...This simply isn't worth 200€ for me. I'd rather upgrade GPU or something...And oh btw... everything done with Acronis. Only software that complained after transition was MS Office 2010. It needed reactivation.

[Guest firehawk44]

Gurus, I'm thinking of moving FSX from a 640GB WD (64mb cache) HDD to an SSD (128GB) drive, possibly Intel or Crucial. This is a fairly recent installation of FSX and I'd like to clone the HDD to the SSD using WD's Acronis software. Also, Windows 7 64-bit lives on it's own WD HDD drive. Wondering if anyone has any input, experience, thoughts on this transition. Does it make performance sense to use one HDD with one SSD? I've done some exploring on forums and it seems reasonable. Further down the road I may add another SSD for Windows. I appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.cheers,Greg G

Congrats on getting an SSD drive. It won't make FSX work better other than FSX will load faster. I see an incredible increase in loading time vs a HHD and that makes playing FSX a bit more enjoyable. I'm not familiar with Acronis software but believe you'll have issues cloning to the SSD as FSX registry entries must be changed to indicate the new location; any payware will probably not work and will have to be reinstalled. I would simply reinstall FSX to make sure all the registry entries are made properly. I put FSX on my SSD but installed large sceneries, like MegaScenery to the HDD. Good luck!Best regards,Jim

[Kosta 122]

Congrats on getting an SSD drive. It won't make FSX work better other than FSX will load faster. I see an incredible increase in loading time vs a HHD and that makes playing FSX a bit more enjoyable. I'm not familiar with Acronis software but believe you'll have issues cloning to the SSD as FSX registry entries must be changed to indicate the new location; any payware will probably not work and will have to be reinstalled. I would simply reinstall FSX to make sure all the registry entries are made properly. I put FSX on my SSD but installed large sceneries, like MegaScenery to the HDD. Good luck!Best regards,Jim

I am gonna contradict this:There are absolutely no registry problems if you change drive letters accordingly.Copy FSX to SSD (simple copy suffices), go to disk management and change HDD to anything else, and SSD to what HDD was. Voila.Acronis is only needed for Windows.

[Chocorua 112]

Interesting input guys and I thank you! I have cloned HDD to HDD many times successfully (with FS9/FSX payware on them), usually changing the drive letters to what they were before and all was well. So, it sounds like a workable idea, but...hmmm, maybe upgrading the GPU (using a GTX 460) would be wiser. I did only expect faster load times and perhaps better texture loading with an SSD.I shall continue pondering. cheers,Greg G

[Guest firehawk44]

I am gonna contradict this:There are absolutely no registry problems if you change drive letters accordingly.Copy FSX to SSD (simple copy suffices), go to disk management and change HDD to anything else, and SSD to what HDD was. Voila.Acronis is only needed for Windows.

Thanks Word Not Allowed. I read that he was keeping Windows 7 on his HDD and only FSX on the SSD. The HDD would be the boot up drive wouldn't it? And the boot up drive contains the registry. The SSD would be given another drive letter like Drive E. With your simple method, I suspect he would also have to change the boot up drive (the HDD) to Drive E. That's simple for sure! I learn everyday!Best regards,Jim

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Thanks Word Not Allowed. I read that he was keeping Windows 7 on his HDD and only FSX on the SSD. The HDD would be the boot up drive wouldn't it? And the boot up drive contains the registry. The SSD would be given another drive letter like Drive E. With your simple method, I suspect he would also have to change the boot up drive (the HDD) to Drive E. That's simple for sure! I learn everyday!Best regards,Jim

I've gone through the same scenario. You do not touch the boot drive.Start with two HDDs, add the SSD. Copy the entire FSX folder to the SSD.Rename the FSX HDD to Z and rename the SSD to whatever the FSX HDD was set to.I quite like FSX on the SSD. It loads faster, it is dead quiet, and scenery is very smooth.I've kept the old FSX HDD as a backup and moved the page file to it, to give it something to do..

[Chocorua 112]

I've gone through the same scenario. You do not touch the boot drive.Start with two HDDs, add the SSD. Copy the entire FSX folder to the SSD.Rename the FSX HDD to Z and rename the SSD to whatever the FSX HDD was set to.I quite like FSX on the SSD. It loads faster, it is dead quiet, and scenery is very smooth.I've kept the old FSX HDD as a backup and moved the page file to it, to give it something to do..

That pretty much sums up what I was imagining to do with my system. Bert, may I ask what SSD you are using?Thanks much,Greg

[Kosta 122]

perhaps better texture loading with an SSD.

I have compared both 7200 and 10k drives - no real texture loading difference within flight.Not even less stuttering... (the reason why I bought to try it out)

[Chocorua 112]

I have compared both 7200 and 10k drives - no realy texture loading difference within flight.

All right then, many thanks for all the input. Greg

[dazz 69]

Word Not Allowed, Acronis does not keep the partition's allignment. Did you keep that in mind when you cloned windows to the SSD with Acronis?

[Kosta 122]

Word Not Allowed, Acronis does not keep the partition's allignment. Did you keep that in mind when you cloned windows to the SSD with Acronis?

What do you mean with alignment?When you clone with Acronis, you simply get data to SSD, that's all - hidden files and all that.In the end: it was working, faster. But not 200€-faster worth.

[dazz 69]

Partition allignment is very important in SSD's. If the resulting partition is missalligned, there's an added overhead and performance of the SSD is much worseYou can use AS SSD to test the allignment, or msinfo32 -> Components -> Storage -> Disks -> Partition Starting Offset = 1,048,576 bytesTo keep the partition alligmnent with Acronis:1.- format the ssd in W72.- copy the partition with Acronis to the SSD WITHOUT the Master Boot Record3.- move the MBR to the SSDOh, BTW. I also tested an SSD and I also was far from impressed

[Kosta 122]

Partition allignment is very important in SSD's. If the resulting partition is missalligned, there's an added overhead and performance of the SSD is much worseYou can use AS SSD to test the allignment, or msinfo32 -> Components -> Storage -> Disks -> Partition Starting Offset = 1,048,576 bytesTo keep the partition alligmnent with Acronis:1.- format the ssd in W72.- copy the partition with Acronis to the SSD WITHOUT the Master Boot Record3.- move the MBR to the SSDOh, BTW. I also tested an SSD and I also was far from impressed

But if testing FSX, then it's enough to copy the data to the under W7 formatted SSD (NTFS)?I also enabled TRIM.And true, I didn't do the proposed procedure, as I don't know how to "move MBR". I know what it is though (I think I know what it is)... I just don't know how to copy or move it.

[dazz 69]

If you simply copy data to an SSD formated in Win7 there's no problemThe problem is when you restore the image of a mechanical drive into an SSD, formated or not, with Acronis (Typical procedure for system/OS recovery)When you backup a disk with windows installed, you have the C: (or whatever) partition itself, a small System Reserved NTFS partition, and the Master Boot Record (MBR)The procedure in more detail:1.- Create two NTFS partions in the SSD, one of 100MB more or less for the System Reserved NTFS, and the rest for C:. Both primary partitions. Set the system reserved partition as Active2.- Clone the C: partition to the large partiotion in the SSD:3.- Clone the system reserved (Reservado para sistema in spanish in the pic above) to the small partition you created before4.- move the MBR to the SSD, also with acronis (change the default location to the SSD)You don't really need to move the MBR if you are going to keep the old disk, but it's preferable to have the MBR in the OS disk, cause otherwise you'll need both disks to boot into Windows, and if you format the old disk with the MBR, it won't boot anymore