I just purchased a new top of the line ABS computer to use in my work (photography and video) and will probably install Flight Sim 2004 on it also. On all of my other computers I have had the hard drive partitioned into 3-4 differant sections. This new computer has a TWO- DUEL 120 GB, zero configed harddrives. ( It also has the new two video cards setup). I've heard that flight sim runs smoother if you COMPRESS FS2004. Can you compress Fs2004 if the harddrive in ONE big 240 GB drive ? I DE-frag alot after working with my photography so would I be better off with ONE 240 GB drive or break it up into 2-4 smaller drives? Your opions PLEASE. Thanksjerrycwo4

I never use more than one partition (which is the minimum, without a partition you have nothing) per drive.In my machine at the moment there's 4 physical drives, with one partition each.

I think harddrive partioning is a thing of the past, unless you have a really good functional reason for doing so, although I can't imagine what that would be. Older operating systems couldn't recognize larger drives so partioning was a requirement, and a whole sub-industry spun up around it. Yes, a larger drive will defrag slower than a smaller one but if you do it often enough it's no big deal. I've tried both compressed and uncompressed fs9 directories and haven't noticed any difference. Like other things though, it might be system dependant so could be worth a try as it's not much bother. Start compressing the fs9 folder before you go to bed at night and it's ready in the morning, and likewise if you want to decompress it. Once it's compressed, all the files you move or install into that compressed directory automatically compress so there's no ongoing maintanence to speak of. Good luck! Sounds like you'll have a great system there. billg

i have to agree, one partition per drive. as for compressing and defraging, i have the drive containg my scenery files compressed, i do this just to give me more room as it is only a 40 gig drive, i did not notice any change in perormance between compressed or not. my other drives 120 main and 80 where not compressed and the other day i reached the limit with my 120, i was down to less than 15% free. now i keep clutter down emptying the bin and temp internet files regurely the temp folder is emptied automatically every time i reboot. so i was thingking thing where looking like i might need to clear quite a lot oof stuff out, but decided to run disk cleanup, i was not expecting miriculs so i set it cleaning before i went to be, it was still cleaning in the morning and did not finish till later that day. one of the things that the XP cleanup does is compress old files, and the result of this action was quite astounding, i reclaimed over 40 gig without having to delete anything, the drive is now only half full. after all this the drive was pretty dreagmented, and it took almost another night and day to clean it up. after all this there is definatly know fall in performance. as for dfragging, my stem which is on most of the day and evening is set to defragg while it is idle so it is kept pretty sorted and hardly ever needs a defragg.

The obvious reason to partition harddrives is to keep things organized and more in order.Take zip files and other stuff you just want to store. Why have that files coupled together with the win xp files and fs9 files making seek times longer and put the fs9 files more towards the slower part of the harddrive (which is toward the middle).If you put your scenery on a separate partition or better harddrive of course you will never ever have to defrag it really. Same with FS9 keep it in it

Agreed with Bill here, modern fast HD's do not need partitioning. However there can be logistical reasons for partitioning larger drives. I personally don't but then I defrag my 250gb HD using a professional defragger called O+O defrag on a daily basis while I sleep. This is an intersting web page on the subject.http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_02.htmGood luckCheersTimhttp://members.chello.nl/t.westnutt/realair1.gif

Why do people say it

I think the most important factor in partitionng the hard drive is back-up, ie if you have to do a clean re-install of Windows and have to re-format the C partition, you still have all your data elsewhere. I have FS9 in a G partition and when I recently re-formatted C and re-installed Windows XP, FS9 started up again okay and did not require any re-installs.NigelVancouver

Hi Jerry,It appears that, again contrary to what many will recommend, it is quite unnecessary to segregate XP from other installations on your HD. Windows XP's NTFS handling routines are very efficient and performance actually will be better if everything is installed onto an unpartitioned drive. The only reason many (myself included) prefer, for example, to isolate XP on a small partition is it makes routine housekeeping tasks like defragging so much easier and quicker. Also, it just seems to be a 'neater' solution which appeals to folk like me ;). Also, my understanding is that if your drives are formatted NTFS, and you are using Windows XP, then place the paging file on the same drive/partition as the operating system. Windows XP does a pretty good job and, arguably, our interference only succeeds in getting in the way.Mike

That is not true always. FS9 installations tend to be quite large. Mine is at like 14 gig. If I would mix operating system and FS9 there is no way in #### I could have everything ordered even if I defrag every time I install an add on or such. Then it

WOW ! That was pretty rough !! About the same number of people for and against partitioning. Since this is a new computer and it will have a limited number of programs on it and a few programs from ABS have already been installed, for now, I think I'll just keep it as a ONE partitioned 240 GB harddrive. Thanks to all that gave me info. jerrycwo4

Keep in mind that partitioning the harddrive in itself don

I think it comes down to personal preference. Performance difference is minimal. With certain combinations you may optimize the reading patterns slightly and of course performance would also degrade if you were to place frequently used files on the slower parts of the disk.I currently have two drives, 160+120GB and currently:C: 10GB - sys partition (basically just WinXP)D: 70GB - install games and sims to hereE: 55GB - Storage for downloaded stuff, screenshots, MP3's etcF: 16GB - Big European sceneries (examples: England and Wales, Swiss Pro etc.)G: 102GB - The "junk" partition. 100GB of stuff I really should delete since I hardly use it any more :-lolH: 1.1GB - Fixed-size 1GB swapfile (this one is located at the fastest part of the second harddrive)I: DVD writerJ: Virtual CD-ROM drive (Deamon tools)K: 8GB - Big American sceneries (Megascenery, 30m mesh, American Data etc)For *ME*, this has a number of advantages:1. C: quickly gets fragmented since it contains the OS which is constantly modified and accessed. But since the partition only contains 8GB of data or so it only takes a couple of minutes to defrag even if it's severely fragmented.2. D: only really gets fragmented if I add or remove lots of games. Same with F: and K: - they almost never get fragmented unless I remove or add lots of sceneries. This saves time since I only rarely have to defrag those. I created two scenery partitions because Perfectdisk coouldn't manage the hundreds of thousands of tiny files from having Megascenery, VFR Photographic, Swiss Pro and Real Germany no the same partition. It would just freeze halfway through.3. Downloaded files often get very fragmented especially if you download multiple files at once or download over several days bit by bit using something that supports resume. It's good to keep that mess separated from the other files.4. If I need to reformat and reinstall the OS I only need to do so with the 10GB sys partition, so I don't have to reinstall 30GB of scenery and re-download tons of stuff.I guess having a small system partition is a habbit I have since the Amiga days - those computers always had you create one "Sys:" or "Workbench" partition and one "Work:" partition for programs and games. I just feel more at home when everything is neatly organized rather than just spread randomly over two disks.Re compressing - I tried compressing sceneries but the gain wasn't very big so I uncompressed again. However compressing the aircraft folder reduced it from 6.1GB to 2.4GB, a huge improvement. Noticed no performance difference.

here's a good reason against partitioning your drive/ssay you have a 120 gig drive and decide to make 3 40s out of it, keeping one for say FS9 when you first install it you have plenty of room but it soon starts growing, before long you will not have enough room on one drive and start splitting it up, a bit inconvenient but not a problem so long as it is only the scenery you wish to move (rembering that all those downloaded files are in CDs so do not use HD space) as your version of FS9 continues to grow more games are pushed of your game partition untill the FS9 root outgrows your drive. and you start having to choose between the Payware and high quality freeware, and reducing th enumber of repaints you have. granted you can only fly one aircraft/repaint at once but may of us like to have many repaints for each of our planes.My scenery folder is about 14.4 gig (compressed) and lives on a seperate 40 gig HD (not partition), but the real sting is the size of FS9 folder; i have my Microsoft games on my C drive and most of the other games on seperate 80 gig drive. The microsoft game include CFS 1, 2, and 3, train sim, Midtown madness 2 and MotoX madness, in addition to FS98 and 2002, most of the flight sims contin addons and expansions, but their size is small compared to FS9. the total size of other MS games is only 20 gig which is compressed to a mere 14 gig, but uncompressed FS9 takes up 57.7 gig of which the 549 aircraft take up over 47 gig, even the gauges use 1.5 gig, compressed FS9 goes down to 26.8 gig, but even then it makes a monkey out of that 40 gig partition, i could probably gain a bit more space by compressing all the files on the drive (this compression was done by the cleanup utility), what ever it is clear that had i partitoned my drives i would be facing prblems. i admit it did take all night and most of the next day to defrag the drive after the cleanup, but normally it is defragged whenever it is idle so normally it does not get defragmented.

Well get partition magic and you don