I have been considering getting a new harddrive dedicated solely to FS (maybe all flightsim games).I have heard that less files stored on a drive the faster it is.Should I think in terms of % used or the total number of bytes on the drive? Will FS be faster on a drive bigger than needed?How big should the drive be? I also use a lot of addons.

Im in the same situation as you, and i would like to know everything you asked about too.

I have FS solely on a separate hard drive... Now what I mean by this, is I have a removable rack that I can pull out, depending on what I'm doing. My main hard drive has all my regular software installed, including what I call my Test Flight Sim installation. When I fly Flight Sim, I remove this hard drive, and install my Flight Sim hard drive that only contains Windows XP, and Flight Simulator. No anti virus, no fire wall, nothing. With this set up, flight Sim runs very smooth with no shutters etc... I'd never go back to having flight simulator on the same hard drive with all my other junk... ever again. In fact, the hard drive I use for Flight Sim flying, I don't even use to surf the net. I've only gone too Microsoft Windows update site.Getting a removable rack, with a separate Hard drive has made a world of difference for me...

So basically you bougt an external hard drive?

No, I don't have an external hard drive. Its a rack that you mount in your PC, and then you install your hard drive in a tray which slides in and out of the rack. Their are all kinds out there... IDE, SATA, etc. I have five hard drives that I swap in and out of my PC. One hard drive still has Windows 98 on it... Here is an example: http://www.coolerexpress.com/snalmorafors.html

WOW!!JimCYWG

No anti>virus, no fire wall, nothing. With this set up, flight Sim>runs very smooth with no shutters etc... >Is that not a little unsecure?

Nope, not at all. First, I don't use my FS hard drive to surf the net with, and second, about once a week I scan my FS hard drive from another computer over my network. I have never had any issues. My Router also adds another level of security....

But, if you use multiplayer, aren't you leaving your P.C. open to any virusses that may be floating around in the 'ether'?Right, should I do another quick lap of the old Nurburgring circuit with 'GT4' or go flying?Dave T.

"I'd never go back to having flight simulator on the same hard drive with all my other junk... ever again. In fact, the hard drive I use for Flight Sim flying, I don't even use to surf the net."....Hmm well, speaking as one who does have and always has had Flight Simulator on the same hard drive along with all my other 'junk' I can say with absolute authority that it does not matter one iota. The secret is regular maintenance and allowing Windows or a good 3rd party defragmenter like PerfectDisk to optimize the positioning of programs on the HD according to frequency of use. As you will note from the specs below my system can no longer be regarded as cutting edge, but it does remain very capable in all areas of use and currently I have no burning desires to upgrade. There is just no need. My FS9 installation today is 31.1GB (21.6 on Disk) and I obtain very good and consistent performance, including the all-important speed of disk access, in most situations apart from the most demanding.FS9 shares my D: drive with FS2k2, Falcon4, CFS2, IL2 + IL2FB, LockOn and Real Flight and that's just my flight simulations. Add to that collection games like D3, UT, HL2, X2-the threat, Morrowind, Tiger Woods PGA, to mention a few, and also all those applications too numerous to list you perhaps get the idea!The only concession I've made is to segregate the o/s (XP Home) away from the rest on its own partition (C:), but that was done more for my convenience than because it was strictly necessary.Look after your installations and hard drives, keep it all free from unnecessary clutter and dead wood, make regular backups (I use an external drive for that purpose) and you shouldn't be disappointed.MikeP4 2.4GHz (400FSB), 1Gig PC2100 DDR Crucial, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Omega 2.6.05a), SB Audigy (5.12.0001.0443), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Monitor (1280x1024x32), Gigabyte GA-8IRXP MoBo, Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W, WinXP Home (SP2), DirectX 9.0c, AGP Aperture = 128M

And their you go... A guy who speaks with "Absolute Authority" and claims to know it all, but has yet to try it himself... :-hmmm :-lolUltimately folks, their are all kinds of tweaks and tips out there. Do what ever works great for you, and I'll do the same...Happy flying

"And their you go... A guy who speaks with "Absolute Authority" and claims to know it all, but has yet to try it himself..."....ouch!! I suppose I asked for that. Maybe it was a tad OTT. If so I apologize and I certainly would not claim 'to know it all'. Nevertheless, several years of experimentation with FS on several PCs has led me to the conclusion that of all the operating systems (W98, 98SE, ME and now XP) with XP at least it doesn't seem to matter. If you have a good HD (at least UDMA 100 and rotating at 7200rpm with reasonably quick access times) then I doubt whether you would notice much difference. But I should perhaps have underlined the fact that this was my own very subjective opinion and, quite clearly, I wouldn't quarrel with doing 'whatever works for you'.Mike

RJ

Hi Carl,If it was me I would stick to your original plan and reserve the USB external drive for backups. You will find the data transfer rate will not be quick enough from the USB drive to avoid periodic and noticeable pauses/hesitations during texture loading while flying in FS.I think it is quite likely that your current PSU will be very near the edge and is quite likely to fail at some stage. Again, my advice would be to bite the bullet and invest in a beefier unit. With modern GPUs I think it would be wise to aim for at least a 300W model. Better still, go for a 400W and you should be okay for a while.As to whether you would be able to install FS on both your internal master and external drives I very much doubt it. I could be wrong, but I suspect the installer would detect a current installation and prevent the second one from launching. It may be you could try fooling the installer by renaming the FS9 root folder and temporarily removing the relevant key in the registry AFTER MAKING A BACKUP OF THE WHOLE REGISTRY or THE SELECTED BRANCH (which terminates at and includes the key):The relevant key is called '9.0' and can be located at the end of the following path:HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator9.0If you decide to give it a try I would be interested to know how you got on.It may be that others will have something to say on this matter so I suggest you wait a few days for any further contributions to this thread.Cheers!MikeP4 2.4GHz (400FSB), 1Gig PC2100 DDR Crucial, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Omega 2.6.05a), SB Audigy (5.12.0001.0443), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Monitor (1280x1024x32), Gigabyte GA-8IRXP MoBo, Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W, WinXP Home (SP2), DirectX 9.0c, AGP Aperture = 128MB

Thanks Mike for your input. Yes, I agree with you the USB HD would probably give me more stutters. Even though it turns at 7200rpm the buffer is only 2mb. The problem with Dell is their PS is not an "off the shelf" unit. I think the 250 watter has a peak of around 350W. It is growing feable and will die in the not to distance future. Today I added another 256mb RDRAM to bring it up to 756mb and I have a SB Audigy comming. The extra Ram really helped with my slow texture draws and stuttering, so I am pleased with the improvement. I think the little Audigy will help some over my existing SB live. Will go ahead and stick with leaving FS9 on the existing HD until I upgrade to a faster pooter.Best regards,Carl