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Ideas please

Roger

Roger

Senior Administrator
I have a dilemma and could do with a few ideas. My 750gb SSD is nearly full (mainly FsX and ORBX scenery). A new 2tb SSD is about £500 but I could copy my existing drive to the new one (made bootable) and use the 750 for other sims. The sticking point is the £500 which with me close to retirement is a lot of money.
If I were to port my entire aircraft folder to my existing, conventional, storage HD (with an entry in my FsX.cfg), would I lose registry entries for my payware aircraft and might there be other issues?

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

Roger.
 
Roger,you could move your complete ORBX folder with a junction link to another HDD.
Then you will have a lot of free space.
Mike
 
Moving the scenery with the appropriate configuration in FSX would be my suggestion as well. This will free up considerable space.
 
I have been wanting to move my entire Orbx scenery to another drive with the new MKlink but I am not sure how to do it.

Any detailed help would be appreciated.My orbx is on my main orbx folder is in FSX on my c drive and I would like to move it to my d drive.

Cheers Chris
 
Hi Roger:

With as much online Multi-Player flying as you apparently already do, would I be correct that you may do even more such flying after retirement ?

If so, you'll be much more satisfied with having invested in the 2 TB SSD. ;-)


But, I believe you do have some options which might help you prevent having to reinstall existing add-on aircraft, and which may actually perform so well, that you do not necessarily have to purchase the additional "2 TB SSD" to achieve fast file reads from your FS airplanes folder chain.


However, there would be some additional work involved whenever you install updates for existing aircraft, and install any new add-on aircraft, so, there would be both learning and work required, if you have the patience for that... as an alternative to purchasing a larger SSD.

Thus, an ideal scenario requiring less initial and periodic work, would be to simply use a hard drive large enough to accommodate the entire installation of FS on a single drive letter.


NOTE: IMHO, one should not modify the 'active' FSX.Cfg entry for the path of one's existing airplanes folder chain, as this may put one at risk for losing the activation information of some sophisticated payware FS aircraft add-ons.

And, IMHO, one would not want to change the drive letter and folder location for ones "transplanted" working Windows installation on a new SSD, as this may change the Windows Registry and may also put one at risk for losing the activation information of some sophisticated payware FS aircraft add-ons.


A general conceptual overview of the process I have used successfully for years:


1.) Install Peter Schinagl's free Link Shell Extension, and re-boot Windows:

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html


2.) Make a backup copy of the entire [FS install path and folder name]\SimObjects\Airplanes sub-folder from your existing FS installation on your "conventional storage HD".


2.) Make a 'empty' [FS install path and folder name]\SimObjects sub-folder on your "conventional storage HD".


3.) Copy the 'entire' [FS install path and folder name]\SimObjects\Airplanes sub-folder from your existing FS installation on the "750 GB SSD", into the above 'empty' [FS install path and folder name]\SimObjects sub-folder on your "conventional storage HD".

This is now your "Link Source" from which you will later drop "Symbolic Link Clones" of "Link Source" Folders / Files into your "Target" on the "750 GB SSD".


4.) Remove (only) the original full-sized files and folders from the [FS install path and folder name]\SimObjects\Airplanes sub-folder in your existing FS installation on the "750 GB SSD".

This is now your (empty) "Target" into which you drop "Symbolic Link Clones" of "Link Source" Folders / Files

5.) Drop "Symbolic Link Clones" of "Link Source" Folders / Files from [FS install path and folder name]\SimObjects\Airplanes on your "conventional storage HD" onto the (empty) "Target" [FS install path and folder name]\SimObjects sub-folder of your existing FS installation on the "750 GB SSD".


NOTE: "Symbolic Link Clones" are only 0-byte 'place-holder' objects in the Windows file system ...when Peter Schinagl's Link Shell Extension is used.


6.) Start FS to test functionality of the changes made above.


FYI: To boost effective throughput speed for your "conventional storage HD" to levels comparable to a "hybrid" HD using flash memory, in Windows 7 64-bit, you can use up to 256 GB of "ReadyBoost" file system and paging file cache memory using relatively inexpensive 'fast' (ex: 133 MB per second) USB-3 flash drives formatted with 32 KB clusters using the ExFAT file system.


NOTE: The Windows "ReadyBoost" caching mechanism for ones "conventional storage HD" works independent from the Windows prefetch and super fetch subsystem, and IIUC, does not attempt to cache files from any installed SSDs in your computer.

Presently I am using exclusively conventional (mechanical) hard drives on my desktop and laptop computers, and Windows "ReadyBoost" has dramatically improved performance when sufficient caching capacity (256 GB) is provided for each such computer using relatively inexpensive peripheral devices via either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 interface speeds.

Hope these ideas might prove helpful for either you or other readers ! :engel016:

GaryGB
 
Hi Speedy,
Regarding moving your ORBX folder from C to D and creating a link(junction):

1) Move the ORBX folder to D

2) With the cursor in the main FSX folder press and hold shift and right-click and select "Open command window here"

3) In the cmd window type "mklink /J ORBX D:\ORBX" and press Enter (don't type the quotes)

It's pretty simple. Opening the cmd window in the folder where you'd like the link saves some typing.
The general command format is: mklink /J (name of moved folder) (full path to moved folder)

Jim F.

I've edited this post. I originally typed "Z" as the drive letter of the destination folder instead of "D"
 
Last edited:
Interestingly, having checked the size of my ORBX folder and my Airplanes folder, they are both around 220Gb. If I could shift them both I could save over half my 750Gb SSD:dizzy:
 
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