So I’m going to be replacing my NVME SSD drive with one that is 1TB and much faster at read and write speeds (3000vs2000) though I’m not sure what my MB is capable of. I also have a 500gb SATA drive which is where I currently have my packages folder. I think it’s speed is about 450-500. My question is, would it be better to have the packages folder on the faster NVME drive? I’m looking for faster start up times. I think FS runs pretty much in vram so I’m not sure if it matters once it’s loaded but currently it takes 4+ minutes to start the sim with FSLTL traffic installed. I’ve read that it’s better to have the packages folder on a different drive for Vram purposes though I’ve seen no proof. Another possibility is to partition the NVME into 2 drives. Any thoughts? I’m upgrading the ram too.
I think you’d much rather have MSFS loading off your NVME then spinning disk (SATA).
Some folks will move their Community Folder to another drive, and then use something like Addon Linker to activate the ones they want.
But I’d recommend you put everything on that much faster NVME.
The SATA is a SSD. My bad. Just not as fast as the NMVE.
I have my 500GB NVMe drive partitioned with 2 partitions, C: & D:.
C: is 200 GB with Windows 11 only.
D: is 265GB with MSFS only.
Works fine.
All other programs on another 1TB drive, 3 partitions.
I don’t know how you get by with only 256gb for MSFS.
I moved my MSFS from SSD 860 Evo 4 TB (SATA) to SSD 980 Pro 2TB (NVMe M2) and I do not really see any improvement: neither loading time nor performance of sim.
SSD Sata or NVMe M2 prices are getting cheaper and easier to get nowadays, just invest a SSD 2TB and you have more room for new contents coming. Not a good idea to partition a SSD.
HDD is only good for storing inactive files or data that you rarely access to them everyday.
MSFS, AAU2 Beta, 1.33.5.0
I do not have any thing in my Community folder.
My MSFS is installed on the D:\ drive.
Its size is currently 151 GB, D:\MSFS.
D: drive is 153 GB used and 111 GB free.
I have no Addons.
No problems.
My official folder alone is 268gb, but then I have every world update installed.
I think I’ll move it to the NVMe anyway since I’ll have terabyte now, might as well use it. I’ll use my Sata SSD for backups.
All I can say is that MSFS accesses your packages drive for scenery/effects while you are simming so it’s best not to have any other activity on it reducing your bandwidth and adding pressure on your system’s controllers. That includes virtual memory and because MSFS sometimes loads huge files I recommend a fixed size of 15-20GB on your Windows drive and nowhere else. Other than that it shouldn’t matter significantly as the sim is loaded into memory at start and runs from there.