I right now have a Raptor 150GB hard drive. I find that it takes a long time to load airports that are located in the MegaSceneryX Southern California areas. I have 4GB RAM, 8800 Ultra video card, and an Intel E6700 CPU in my PC. Would adding another Raptor 150GB hard drive and setting them up for RAID 0 reduce load times noticeably for areas in MegaSceneryX Southern California? I also could use the increased drive space that comes with RAID 0 for my games, applications, and operating systems right now and 300GB would be more than enough capacity for me.

>Would adding another Raptor 150GB hard drive and setting them up for>RAID 0 reduce load times noticeably for areas in MegaSceneryX>Southern California?Doubtful. RAID-0 excels in increasing throughput (the speed of reading in data), but it actually degrades your seek times (the speed of finding files). When it comes to flight simulator, SEEK TIME is your biggest ally in the hard drive world. This is because MSFS uses thousands upon thousands of little files... the system has to find and read each of them (*as needed) when flying.Megascenery tiles actually add thousands upon thousands MORE files to the structure. Unlike standard "landclass" scenery, which consists of a set of repeating textures, photoreal scenery uses an individual file for each building block... thats a lot of files!A RAID-0 array will not load that file in any faster than a Raptor drive, simply because the file is so small. BUT... the RAID-0 will take more time in GETTING to that file due to having to sync two different drive heads and reading off of two disks.Recommendation:Get the extra drive (Perhaps a 70gb Raptor, unless you need the space), but stick to the standard drive layout. Don't RAID it. Put MSFS on the new drive. MSFS and Windows/Applications will then be separated from each other... when Windows needs to read/write, it has it's own drive to do so. When MSFS needs to load, the drive head is all hers. This will also help you keep the MSFS drive nicely defragmented, with no interference from other programs. Good luck, and keep defragmented!-GregRAID-0 = Best for big files.MSFS = Lots and lots of small files.

Thanks for the advice. I also have a 200GB 7200rpm drive that I used to have FSX installed on then I upgraded to the Raptor 150GB but I didn't notice any difference in load times, although the access time on the Raptor is much lower than my 200GB 7200rpm. Last week I bought a Western Digital 750GB WD7500AAKS because I was running out of space on my Raptor and wanted a fast hard drive but at least 250GB for my Games/Operating Sytems drive. I use my 200GB for data storage since it's slower than both these drives. However I notice probably slightly longer loading time on the 750GB than my Raptor when loading LAX in MegasceneryX. I also have been experimenting with different partition configurations lately. While having MegasceneryX SC on the Raptor in a partition I created specifically for my MegaSceneryX Scenery while having FSX on the 750GB 7200rpm, I notice a little improvement in FSX loading LAX in MegaScenery X SC. I also had my page file setup on it's own partition on the Raptor that time. However I don't notice any difference in performance with my page file on a separate hard drive than my OS/Games. I don't know if I should return the WD 750GB hard drive to the store for a refund and buy another 150GB Raptor just for FSX and my addons which would take 67GB of hard drive space. I also noticed that when running HDTach in Windows Vista 64-bit the first 12GB on the graph slope upward from 70MB/s to upper 90's most of the time I test it out in Vista and I don't know if that's a defect in the drive. I don't have that problem in Windows XP. My other hard drives don't have the problem in Vista.