Storage question. New to pc's

[Ghostmaker]

Please bare with me, as im new to all this.

 

My new scan pc is at the minute a dedicated DCS system. 4090 and ryzen 7 7800x3d, 2TB corsair mp600 core XT M.2

32gb 2x 16 gb corsair vengance 5600mhz DDR5

 

When i go to windows 11, settings, system, storage. This is what i see. Please help how much do i have spare for new maps and dcs aircraft? 

 

Is it 753gb?

[MAXsenna]

Please bare with me, as im new to all this.
 
My new scan pc is at the minute a dedicated DCS system. 4090 and ryzen 7 7800x3d, 2TB corsair mp600 core XT M.2
32gb 2x 16 gb corsair vengance 5600mhz DDR5
 
When i go to windows 11, settings, system, storage. This is what i see. Please help how much do i have spare for new maps and dcs aircraft? 
 
Is it 753gb?

Yes. You should consider another drive.

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[Ghostmaker]

Is there enough for the new afganistan map?  If i wanted to free up some space would it be as easy as delete a map? 

[kksnowbear]

A 2TB drive is typically OK, but it shouldn't be the same physical drive as your PC boots from as is the case currently.

Get a second drive, 2TB (or more if you can afford it) and move the entire DCS install to the new drive**.  You'll have more free space (a typical DCS install runs 300-500GB as I understand it, of course add-ons take more space)...

...but, significantly, it will help performance (but for God's sake "performance' is not always reliably measured strictly by FPS).  It *will* improve performance, but will *not* likely change FPS (in almost any case).  The performance benefit you get is not the sort that increases FPS, and as (almost) anyone can understand, there is far more to overall 'performance' in a computer than sheer stupid FPS.  (And I'm also not just talking about faster load times, either).

As a grossly oversimplified analogy, imagine a crowd of people attempting to get pieces of fruit from a single basket.  No matter how you line the people up or otherwise regulate their efforts, having a second basket of fruit will always allow more people to get more fruit, faster than if they only have access to one basket.   And, the faster each person gets their fruit, the less time every other person has to wait for theirs.

Fairly simple.

Sorry to sound so stern but I thought I'd get this out of the way before the parade of 'experts' that will say it doesn't do what I'm telling you.

It does, it's very common, and it's been understood for decades in computers.

** As an aside, you could actually get a smaller drive, use it to boot the system, and use your current 2TB drive for DCS.  That way would be cheaper, but TBH it's complicated to do unless you're comfortable working with computers, installing the operating system from scratch and so forth...and it's not my impression from reading your initial post that this is something you'd want to do.  I'm just throwing it out there by way of saying it is actually an option.

Edited June 23, 2024 by kksnowbear

[Ghostmaker]

51 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

A 2TB drive is typically OK, but it shouldn't be the same physical drive as your PC boots from as is the case currently.

Get a second drive, 2TB (or more if you can afford it) and move the entire DCS install to the new drive**.  You'll have more free space (a typical DCS install runs 300-500GB as I understand it, of course add-ons take more space)...

...but, significantly, it will help performance (but for God's sake "performance' is not always reliably measured strictly by FPS).  It *will* improve performance, but will *not* likely change FPS (in almost any case).  The performance increase you get is not the sort that increases FPS, and as (almost) anyone can understand, there is far more to overall 'performance' in a computer than sheer stupid FPS.  (And I'm also not just talking about faster load times, either).

As a grossly oversimplified analogy, imagine a crowd of people attempting to get pieces of fruit from a single basket.  No matter how you line the people up or otherwise regulate their efforts, having a second basket of fruit will always allow more people to get more fruit, faster than if they only have access to one basket.   And, the faster each person gets their fruit, the less time every other person has to wait for theirs.

Fairly simple.

Sorry to sound so stern but I thought I'd get this out of the way before the parade of idiots 'experts' that will say it doesn't do what I'm telling you.

It does, it's very common, and it's been understood for decades in computers.

** As an aside, you could actually get a smaller drive, use it to boot the system, and use your current 2TB drive for DCS.  That way would be cheaper, but TBH it's complicated to do unless you're comfortable working with computers, installing the operating system from scratch and so forth...and it's not my impression from reading your initial post that this is something you'd want to do.  I'm just throwing it out there by way of saying it is actually an option.

 

No mate im not confident with computers at all. Id have to ask someone to completed these works etc for me as i have no clue. Can i loose anything by adding an additional 2tb card? 

[kksnowbear]

13 hours ago, Ghostmaker said:

No mate im not confident with computers at all. Id have to ask someone to completed these works etc for me as i have no clue. Can i loose anything by adding an additional 2tb card? 

If I understand your question, no I believe there's nothing to be lost from installing a second drive (cost of adding the drive itself excluded, of course) provided the board will support it. 

According to the Asus website, your board will support 3 drives.  In fact, you could actually improve performance further still by going to a PCIe Gen 5 drive, because your board supports 1 of those and your current Corsair drive is only Gen 4.

Of course, my having said that, the haters are gonna crawl outta the woodwork now, with dire warnings about how it's not "worth it" (which is absolutely up to the individual) and it won't perform better (there is data to show that's not entirely accurate).

I have to be clear here and acknowledge DCS doesn't currently support the technology offering the the biggest benefit to performance, but it will benefit from faster storage regardless...and no one can accurately say DCS will never support the better technology.  I'm actually of the opinion that it will, based on the fact that it has already implemented other performance-enhancing features like multi-threading and DLSS (which both required explicit coding changes, yet are both already done and stand to improve more over time)

Edited June 23, 2024 by kksnowbear

[Rudel_chw]

2 hours ago, Ghostmaker said:

Is there enough for the new afganistan map? 
 

 

yes, you have over 700gb of storage space free, and the afghanistan map should need around 120 gb.

 

2 hours ago, Ghostmaker said:

If i wanted to free up some space would it be as easy as delete a map? 

 

yes, but I doubt you would need more.

 

I dont agree with the suggestions for adding a 2nd or even 3rd drive, as the storage costs are always reducing their price as time goes by, it is a bad idea to purchase more space than you actually need … its better to wait until your drive is much closer to filling up, before purchasing more storage, you will save money this way.

Edited June 22, 2024 by Rudel_chw

[Ghostmaker]

Thanks for the replies. I purchased the afganistan pre release and was stressing id have an issue. 

[kksnowbear]

12 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

you will save money this way.

At the expense of increased performance, perhaps.

12 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

as the storage costs are always reducing their price as time goes by,

Actually that's not really accurate, at least recently.  Over the past year, SSD prices on most all brands and sizes have actually increased a fair amount.

Here's a link with references for the 3 most common sizes from the biggest manufacturers:

https://www.techspot.com/article/2799-ssd-pricing-q1-24/

It's current as of January this year and I don't think it's much different now. Specifically, that article states:

SSDs have been getting more expensive, and that trend is not limited to specific brands or capacities. 

And people in the industry actually knew it was coming for some time before last summer.  So what you buy and when is not a simple time-linear proposition.

Edited June 23, 2024 by kksnowbear

[Rudel_chw]

17 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

Actually that's not really accurate, at least recently.

a short term situation does not change the fact that data storage costs have decreased over time:

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-computer-memory-and-storage

on my own local market (chile) I’ve been monitoring the ssd prices since january, because I want to upgrade my 1 TB drive to a 2 TB unit, and have not noticed a price increase yet, in spite of the predictions that were published at year start.

[kksnowbear]

28 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

a short term situation does not change the fact that data storage costs have decreased over time

It most assuredly does, if you're in the market during the year-long period (or more) of the increase. *Your* cost will be higher (and per the article I linked, actually kept on increasing over that time).

People looking to buy components aren't necessarily always in a position to (or don't want to) wait out a price drop.

By the way, tell everyone still waiting on a 4090 about prices always dropping (I know it's not storage...but that's beside the point: Waiting doesnt always mean the cost savings is worth the wait).

Also, a major part of the chart you linked is indicating the period over which solid state storage was still very expensive in order to overcome engineering cost, which is always the case early on.  The prices in the chart I linked are much more recent and therefore don't reflect the same level of engineering cost.  My chart also includes data more recently than 2023, which yours seems to omit.  

Edited June 23, 2024 by kksnowbear

[Rudel_chw]

5 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

Waiting doesnt always mean the cost savings is worth the wait).

I wasn’t really suggesting a waiting for lower prices, rather I suggested avoiding purchasing more storage before actually needing it, the OP has barely over half of his storage in use … I really don’t see a real need to increase it ahead of time.

[kksnowbear]

11 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

I really don’t see a real need to increase it ahead of time.

Generally, I might be inclined to agree...to a point, that is.  SSD performance also decreases as the unused space decreases. I personally suggest considering a bigger drive once you're near ~50% capacity (although every case is different).

That said, my comments were intended to address the performance aspect of a single drive vs two.  That aspect, coupled with the fact that the OP is over 50% storage already used, suggests to me a second drive is a reasonable choice.

It's unfortunate that the OP might not be able to "DIY" a swap and just get a smaller drive as I outlined above (moving DCS install to his current 2TB unit)...but if 'drop in' simplicity is a requirement, the way to go would be add a second drive, 2TB or more - as I mentioned previously.

It's worth noting here that the OPs machine is fairly top end...so it's not outrageous to suggest a small percentage of what the machine probably cost is 'worth it' in order to achieve a fairly significant storage enhancement.  (FWIW I'd probably also suggest a memory upgrade, but that's a separate discussion...which will undoubtedly also stir the hornet's nest with the "experts" since this is an AM5 build...)

All my own opinion, of course (but based upon first-hand, actual experience across multiple builds of the same type, and 40+ years' computer experience in general).

Edited June 23, 2024 by kksnowbear

[MAXsenna]

Is there enough for the new afganistan map?  If i wanted to free up some space would it be as easy as delete a map? 

What other modules do already have?

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[Ghostmaker]

Mods i have downloaded are:

Hercules mod

Massun92 assett pack and humans

Tornado vsn

Yf12a vsn

Eurofighter vsn

Mirqge 2000 vsn

F35 vsn

F22 vsn

Military aircraft mod,

 

I purchased

fa18c dcs

Razban f15e

Heat blur f4e phantom

Terrains, caurcuses, marianas, south atlantic, syria, sinia, nevarda, just purchased afganistan pre release

 

Cheers

 

[Slippa]

Welcome to DCS .

Technically, you can install and uninstall any maps or modules that you own as and when you want to. You could have one map and fly one aircraft on it then swap them both out for something else but you’d more than likely want your maps and modules on their own drive for convenience? Instant access to all your options is probably how you’d want things without a wait? I do, so I have everything DCS on a dedicated drive. 

There are different ways to arrange things. What I will tell you is that when I started getting into DCS, clueless as to how it all functioned and with a certificate in incompetent computing I started asking around for advice here. Pretty much the same people that have chipped in on this thread offered advice and couldn’t have been more helpful. They’ll see you alright and will likely still help out if and when things go wrong so you should be ok.

It’s highly addictive. You’ll lose hours like they’re minutes and you’ll see red target spots when you close your eyes to go to sleep. That’s if you can get to sleep without dreaming of switches and levers you could buy for your setup indoors. You’ll become a proficient peripheral purchaser too before you know it and will endure hours and hours of monotonous reviews of shiny new throttles and sticks on YouTube. In time, you will yearn for these, for these are the switchy and bright lighty things of our dreams. You will worship at the alter of the prop and jet engine in places like the church of Heatblur or the temple of latter day Polychops. You could be teased by your peers, sacrilegious types may even describe DCS as a game (the banished ones) but you will push on with your ‘training’ as dedication is key and is what will make you a better ‘pilot’ .

Enjoy .

[MAXsenna]

Mods i have downloaded are:
Hercules mod
Massun92 assett pack and humans
Tornado vsn
Yf12a vsn
Eurofighter vsn
Mirqge 2000 vsn
F35 vsn
F22 vsn
Military aircraft mod,
 
I purchased
fa18c dcs
Razban f15e
Heat blur f4e phantom
Terrains, caurcuses, marianas, south atlantic, syria, sinia, nevarda, just purchased afganistan pre release
 
Cheers
 

Thanks! That's over 420GB without Afghanistan and the mods, which gives you about 25% free space. Which you will probably need for other apps and what not. You don't wanna run out of space during DCS updates too. So I stand by my first post about getting a second drive. I also agree with @kksnowbear's valid points.
Cheers!

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[MAXsenna]

@Slippa Couldn't agree more. This is what Skatezilla's app reports to me.

 

[Slippa]

It only gets bigger too .

All those goodies have to go somewhere. I gave up long ago worrying about the size of it all, it’s bleedin enormous. It eats drives for breakfast compared to most things.

… and cheers for being one of those that helped me out Max, mind boggling some of it and still is, good to have the advice here .

[MAXsenna]

It only gets bigger too .
All those goodies have to go somewhere. I gave up long ago worrying about the size of it all, it’s bleedin enormous. It eats drives for breakfast compared to most things.
… and cheers for being one of those that helped me out Max, mind boggling some of it and still is, good to have the advice here .

Thanks! Anytime!

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[Ghostmaker]

The one thi g im worried about is it looks like ill need to purchase a second 2tb corsair mp600 ssd, only issue is how and who do i get to fit and set this up? As in the post from @kksnowbear he found out my system should be a ble to take a total of 3 so 2 addotional could be purchased. So do i buy 2 x 2tb extra. May be worth me calling the scan 3xs team tomorrow to see if they have a mobile guy?

[kksnowbear]

I would say yes to a second drive.  I don't think a third drive is needed or a good idea at this time.

As for getting it installed...since the machine is new, it might be worth checking with the seller to see if there's any impact on their warranty if someone else adds a drive.  IMHO it should not be an issue, but I am not familiar with rules and practices where you are.

Provided it isn't a problem with the seller, then I'd at least look around locally to see if anyone nearby does PC work - you might also ask the seller if they can recommend anyone local to you.

Adding a drive isn't difficult at all...but if you aren't comfortable doing it (and - depending on how you decide to set it up) it is worth finding someone who knows what they're doing.

If getting another drive installed is just going to be prohibitive (cost, availability, etc) then it's worth noting that the setup you have right now won't explode because of the drive's free space getting below 50%.  So you could go like that for probably quite some time.  You'd need to keep a watchful eye on it and carefully manage adding/removing stuff.   There is some excellent info above about what/how DCS can use. (TBH the details posted by MAXsenna are very enlightening and I absolutely agree 25% free is a big concern).

If you want to address the situation so that it's not required to be so watchful and careful, the way to go is more storage.

Edited June 23, 2024 by kksnowbear

[Ghostmaker]

Thanks all. Tomorrow ill be calling the 3xs team at scan uk who built the pc for me and see what they say.

If i were to delete the syria map and a few aircraft mods would i be ok to then install the new afganistan map when it comes out as ive already purchased it. If i havnt already had the secind 2tb installed? And if so could i then install the syria map back as ive already paid for it previously?

 

Just realised i also have the persian golf map

Edited June 23, 2024 by Ghostmaker

[kksnowbear]

I think there is some excellent 'guidance' above concerning the size of add-ons...it's not my area of expertise, really.  But I do believe it's worth considering the time and effort that could be involved in having to swap stuff back and forth vs having immediate access as Slippa mentioned earlier.

Also, be aware that reading data from an SSD has no adverse impact...but writing is what causes wear over time.  The 'life expectancy' or 'health' numbers are based on writes to the drive, and determined by the amount of data written over time...now, we're talking some very big numbers...but if your situation involves constant swapping/replacing (writing), you will reach that number sooner than if you're not having to do that.

The very best way to treat an SSD is write to it once and only read from it forever after, although that is usually not practical.  What I do personally is try to make sure I install game(s) once, update only if/when needed, and don't move/delete if at all avoidable.  That's the best practical way to treat any SSD.

Finally, deleting data on an SSD doesn't work like it did on a conventional hard disk.  It involves more than just one step, and part of the process is additional writing...so it can be relatively time consuming and also shorten the life of the drive. 

Again, I want to emphasize the amount of data written has to be very large to cause exceptional wear, and none of this is going to cause drastic problems in a short time.

I don't want to cause unreasonable fear or concern by handing out bad information, ever.    But some people keep machines for many years, and storage for as long as it works...over which time if you're writing tons of data, could cause wear at a higher rate.  Way I see it, avoid the behavior, avoid the problems; particularly since it's easy to avoid and not outrageously expensive.

These are absolutely real factors that you need to weigh.

Edited June 23, 2024 by kksnowbear

[Ghostmaker]

Im not sure how i move all my dcs stuff to the one device. 

 

If i speak with the scan uk guys who built it and if they say yes they can install a second 2tb ssd, but cant move all my dcs to one ssd, will i be ok? Does it just mean that ill have more general storage? With no issues?

 

Edited June 23, 2024 by Ghostmaker