Adequate Storage Suggestion!

[mytai01]

If you want to have more than enough storage for DCS, get a 4 terabyte SSD just for DCS. This is enough to last for a few years before you start running out of space. Currently, the whole game is a little more than 1 terabyte. You should be able to find a Samsung SSD for about $300 US. I bought mine recently from B&H.

[Dangerzone]

I know that the size of DCS is one of those things that some have issues with, but honestly - I'd far prefer to have the maps downloaded locally than go that 'stream off internet' based solution another company has opted towards, even if that means I need additional storage to support it. 

Another alternative option is to install a copy of DCS on a NAS, external HDD, etc - and keep that version of DCS updated, and use the dcs_local_source.txt file function on your installed version of DCS to point to the NAS for the updating. This allows people to uninstall some maps from their local SSD if they need more room, and when they want to swap to another map, simply uninstall another map, and choose to install the map they want to use. The dcs_local_source.txt file if setup in the DCS Install directory with the path to the 'cached' install of DCS will simply copy the files across off the NAS/External HDD instead of having to download them all over again.

Obviously having a 4TB SSD is the ultimate solution, but for those who are more financially restricted at the moment and still want to buy and use numerous maps but don't have the room to have them all installed at the same time - it's a good alternative to having to wait a looong time on slow internet connections to re-download a previously downloaded map. 

[unlikely_spider]

Looking to upgrade my PC in the near future. Is there any reason not to get a bigger M.2 drive and put DCS and Windows on the same drive? Or would there be a reason to buy an M.2 for the OS and a SSD for DCS? (Is there even a thing as motherboards with multiple M.2 slots?)

[Rudel_chw]

3 minutes ago, unlikely_spider said:

Is there even a thing as motherboards with multiple M.2 slots?

yes, mine has two m2 slots (asrock b550 gaming 4), I imagine there are others.

[kksnowbear]

It's always better for performance to have separate drives for the OS and any game(s).

Otherwise, requests for data from a single drive will cause "contention", which happens when multiple processes try to get data from a single  storage device at the same time.  Regardless of how fast the storage device is, somebody's having to wait.  How often it happens, and to what extent it causes delays, etc will vary -  but it will happen.

Easiest way to avoid this is keep things on different drives, as much as practical/within reason.  Naturally, it does have to be balanced against cost, but that needn't always be prohibitive.

And as mentioned above, most full sized motherboards (ATX) have two or even three M2 slots - but it does depend on what generation of board, and smaller "micro ATX" models have fewer.

If you can provide your motherboard model number, it will help confirm details.

[unlikely_spider]

2 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

It's always better for performance to have separate drives for the OS and any game(s).

Otherwise, requests for data from a single drive will cause "contention", which happens when multiple processes try to get data from a single  storage device at the same time.  Regardless of how fast the storage device is, somebody's having to wait.  How often it happens, and to what extent it causes delays, etc will vary -  but it will happen.

Easiest way to avoid this is keep things on different drives, as much as practical/within reason.  Naturally, it does have to be balanced against cost, but that needn't always be prohibitive.

And as mentioned above, most full sized motherboards (ATX) have two or even three M2 slots - but it does depend on what generation of board, and smaller "micro ATX" models have fewer.

If you can provide your motherboard model number, it will help confirm details.

Thanks for the info! I haven't bought anything yet, just doing research. Things have changed a little since my last build.

I feel like such conflicts for simultaneous data retrieval requests would be less impactful on solid state drives than mechanical ones, no? But regardless if there's any measurable benefit at all, and modern mobos come with multiple M.2 slots, all else equal it's best to get two smaller ones than one giant one I guess, and then put DCS on the non-OS drive? I guess I can use that as a basis for the build.

[kksnowbear]

Yes, the faster the storage the less the impact, generally.  However, as I mentioned it will still happen at times, and ideally it would be completely eliminated.  The cost of a separate, small boot drive is a tiny fraction of a typical gaming machine these days, so it's not usually a big obstacle.

There are other benefits to having a separate OS drive as well.

And it is a great idea to include storage considerations as part of designing any build. 

[Aapje]

7 hours ago, unlikely_spider said:

I feel like such conflicts for simultaneous data retrieval requests would be less impactful on solid state drives than mechanical ones, no? But regardless if there's any measurable benefit at all, and modern mobos come with multiple M.2 slots, all else equal it's best to get two smaller ones than one giant one I guess, and then put DCS on the non-OS drive? I guess I can use that as a basis for the build.

It matters way less with solid state than with mechanical drives. The issue was that mechanical drives take very long to move to a different part of the drive, so when the system would switch from reading the game files to reading the OS files, and vice versa, it would take a very long time. Solid state doesn't have this issue.

An issue with solid state is that such a drive really shouldn't be filled up completely and you have more headroom with a single big drive. A single drive also makes it easier to add a second big drive in the future.

But my preference is at least two big drives