M2 NVme or SSD

With all of the Mods and Terrains I just bought, it sure doesn't waste anytime filing up your storage. Especially when there is more to get. Halfway thru the download of the F-18, Supercarrier, an Su-33 the dreaded Storage Full stopped everything. I shimmied around and finished my download. And that's all I can do. So first thing in the morning I'm heading out for storage. My working SSd is 512GB. Now I'm reading about M2 and SATA

Question. Would another 512 be ok or should I beef it up to 1TB. I was looking at Amazon and saw this Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-MZ-V7S500B. Is this a good one? But I would get the 1TB I think. Thanks for taking the time.

I own most of the planes and all heli and most maps. My dcs is 155GB large.

My advice buy a HD that is 1TB large if you can afford it, and then install all of your games on that harddisk instead of c:\

Example all my games are installed on d:\ so even if windows break down and i format c:\ then i dont have to download anything on d:\ again, but i can just install example steam ontop of steam on d:\steam and then all games work instant... and the same with dcs you dont even have to reinstall dcs just press play and activate your keys again.. that is it.. ;-)

Regarding m.2 or ssd.

For gaming SSD is good enough, actual there is 0 fps difference ingame once the game is loaded. Basicly you get a little bit faster loading time before a mission, and maybe a tiny bit faster when you load the map ingame the first time.. second time you load the map you wont see any difference in speed.

M.2 is more expensive than ssd.

So if i where you get a 1tb or 2tb ssd instead than an m2 harddisk.

PS:.. Now a days modern video games are HUGE, I really recommend to buy a 2tb harddisk if you can afford it... Example dcs is 155gb,, read dead redemption is 115gb, ect ect so if you own 10 AAA titles then the 1tb harddisk is full very fast... Just saying buy the 2TB hd if you can afford it.

OR a 256gb m2 for windows on c:\ and a 1tb or 2tb SSD d:\ for games and software. That would be the optimal thing to do with best result.

Howdy,

With my last build i went M.2 and yes it was pricey but the difference for me going from SSD to M.2 was very noticeable and worth it. If you can afford it look at it as an investment.Load times are shorter and it just runs smoother.Best of luck.:thumbup:

With all of the Mods and Terrains I just bought, it sure doesn't waste anytime filing up your storage. Especially when there is more to get. Halfway thru the download of the F-18, Supercarrier, an Su-33 the dreaded Storage Full stopped everything. I shimmied around and finished my download. And that's all I can do. So first thing in the morning I'm heading out for storage. My working SSd is 512GB. Now I'm reading about M2 and SATA

Question. Would another 512 be ok or should I beef it up to 1TB. I was looking at Amazon and saw this Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-MZ-V7S500B. Is this a good one? But I would get the 1TB I think. Thanks for taking the time.

I would go with 1TB SSD. I did some testing running DCS on SSD and NVMe. There was zero difference. All the load times, etc varied by a second one way or the other. I typed up the timing for various aircraft and mission load times in the ED Forums » English » Reality » PC Hardware and Related Software forum.

Found it: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3740017&postcount=17

Did you check your motherboard if it supports enough PCI-E lanes to actually use a m.2 NVME full potential? Whats your Motherboard? How many m.2 Slots available?

I would mainly recommend running Windows on the NVME, just to get the most smoothest performance in everyday use. A good quality SSD will work perfectly for DCS.

If you get a 1TB NVME you can install Windows AND DCS on the one drive. But if downloading 155GB is a concern for you, than definitly try to have a backup anywhere else.

Factors to consider:

-Your system upgrade/build cycles

-How much space you need

-Your budget

-Cost of cables/mounting hardware if you go SATA vs available M.2 slots

-Your other performance needs

970 EVO Plus is dramatically faster hardware but slightly pricy. 1TB sounds like a good pick but it depends on your needs. Check if they still sell 970 EVO at a lower price, the performance difference to Plus is not big...

One option could be to move other storage to a regular HDD.

The results from hansangb are interesting. Could be that the disk is no longer the bottleneck in loading once you have a decent SSD (there are performance differences between models) but there is some processing which requires eg. the CPU?

Not so long ago I moved DCS from SSD to new 1TB M2 NVME.

I haven't noticed almost any improvement speed wise, apart from maybe slightly shorter load times.

Tested both drives, NVME is much faster, so it is configured correctly, but still it did not make THAT much difference with DCS.

Well, I guess that is to be expected. CPU won't be able to take advantage of the extra data speed without propper multi-core support in DCS.

First consider how many versions, mods and maps you (will) have in the near future. With stable and openbeta in parallel 512 isn't that much and if you can afford a 1 TB SSD it should be enough for the next couple upgrades and maps. Depending on how many other games you play and install, this definitely is a better choice than a 512GB NVME, as it is not that much faster.

In addition to the SSD I would regularly have a look at things like Multiplayer trackfiles, TacView files in your user profile and the bkp folders in the DCS program folder. These can quickly take up considerable space and usually you don't need them after debriefing.

I just recently freed up a couple gigabytes of old tracks and TacViews from the last 2 years... ;)

P.S.: In general it is a great feature to have the multiplayer trackfiles and especially TacViews available. You just need to know, so you can clean it up from time to time...

I just went from a 500 GB SSD to 2TB PCI M.2. The different isn't huge, and as of right now the only things on the M.2 are the OS and DCS. I'd say a SSD is fine unless you want the absolute best load times even if it's only a couple of seconds. As for size, what do you need to store besides DCS? 500 should be enough for DCS alone. If you have to store other things, go 1 TB.

I went from a 500GB EVO 860 SSD to a Crucial 1 TB M.2. The sim runs the same, but the load times are a huge difference. The 860 took about a minute to load into the F-14 freeflight mission where the M.2 takes about 15 seconds. Granted, the Crucial only cost me $99 US when I picked it up which was a huge steal.

I was looking at Amazon and saw this Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-MZ-V7S500B. Is this a good one? But I would get the 1TB I think. Thanks for taking the time.

Forgot to mention this is the same drive I have. I've only had it for a week, but so far so good. It's about as fast as you can get. In general I've had good experiences with Samsung.

Did you check your motherboard if it supports enough PCI-E lanes to actually use a m.2 NVME full potential? Whats your Motherboard? How many m.2 Slots available?

 

I would mainly recommend running Windows on the NVME, just to get the most smoothest performance in everyday use. A good quality SSD will work perfectly for DCS.

If you get a 1TB NVME you can install Windows AND DCS on the one drive. But if downloading 155GB is a concern for you, than definitly try to have a backup anywhere else.

EVGA Z370 Classified and uses Gen3 speeds.

EVGA Z370 Classified and uses Gen3 speeds.

The question was ment for the topic creator, not to question your performance results ;).

Had a discussion couple months ago with somebody who wanted to put a PCI-E M.2 externsion card into his PCI-E 2.0 slots to use a NVME, which is rather pointless.

I'm new to DCS but have been flying P3D for years and that can be huge with all the add-ons. For DCS I just bought a 500GB NVME and used the second slot on my Asus MB - runs like a dream currently - I got mine from Scan Computers in the UK for about £60. I won't put anything else on it except DCS.

I've got a 256 NVME for DCS and it made a noticeable but not huge difference overall. Since they are easy to fit and install, and the use case was specific to DCS, I felt it was justified as the space and power requirements are very low, my PC has specific slots for them, there is less wires going around the case and I use a mix of cheap physical drives, SSD and NVME together depending on the data. Also as Shagrat said, you should plan your storage.

Hello, I'm getting ready to get a system together and I have a question regarding the drive around. The system im interested in has a 2TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, will this be good to run both main system and DCS. I can choose the option of a dual dual drive which is a 1tb NVMe and a 1 sata which i will sht can the sata and replace with a Samsung Solid State Drive 860 EVO 2.5" SATA III 1TB. Not sure which route to go. I won't be doing much on the main drive and I'll be getting this system mainly for DCS. So my question again is that of the 2TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD , can I use this for both main and DCS. Thanks for any info. i'm getting excited. Oh this system will be from Dell.. Alienware , thrustmaster warthog stick and throttle, alienware keyboard and a 1tb samsung ssd just in case for around $3300 us

1TB M.2 DRIVE for primary drive...Large SSD for storage unless you can afford a second M.2 drive.

Yeah Sierra99 I gotcha thx. I was just thinking if this machine will be solely for DCS that I can just run it with the NVMe primarily. So I’m getting that DCS should run only by itself on a separate drive. Man I’m so new to this it sucks. Thx:thumbup:

There should be no noticable difference between 1 or 2 drives. Don't overthink it. You want fast storage for both system and DCS. 2 drives give you more options to move data around. Since it's mostly for DCS why 2TB? Seems excessive.

Look at Linus's video 18th February this year.

"Does a Faster SSD Matter for Gamers??"

M.2 is much faster and cheaper. But you have limited capabilities to install them and multiple starts to consume your PCI-E lines...

There should be no noticable difference between 1 or 2 drives. Don't overthink it. You want fast storage for both system and DCS. 2 drives give you more options to move data around. Since it's mostly for DCS why 2TB? Seems excessive.

Yeah, well what I guess i was trying to say that if I went with the single drive 2T NVMe. would I even need a second ssd drive. Just run everything plus DCS on that 2T NVMe. Dang ! I never talked any kind of this computer stuff like this ever until I got into this DCS sim. haha!

Thx!!

Everyone says "you won't notice a difference", but for me going from a regular SSD to an NVMe for DCS was a HUGE difference in loading time.

Everyone says "you won't notice a difference", but for me going from a regular SSD to an NVMe for DCS was a HUGE difference in loading time.

Good to know and i'll take your advice thx !!!