Would it be faster to run FS on a external HDD or internal? Im looking for a 120GB hdd, but not shure whether a external is faster than a internal. Ive heard since they run through a firewire, they are slower. True? Thanks guys! :-wave

I use 3 external drives mostly for backup. I use one for different games which runs fine. However, for FS9 I use a SCSI drive which runs fast and smooth.My opinion. Go ahead and try it, but I think it will run slower.

Many external drives spin in at 5600 RPM, slower than the common desktop speed of 7600. This can effect the seek rate, but primarily effects the sustained transfer rate. Irregardless of the actual spin speed, the firewire and USB2 interfaces themselves are slower than ATA & SATA interfaces when it comes to sustained data transfer. This translates into slower loading programs and in the case of MSFS, slower loading flights. Most hard drives (internal and external) have similar seek speeds - so the time to find and use information on the drive is about the same. This means that there should be less of an impact on the regional loading of textures and scenery, but a greater impact on the actual loading of the flight or the re-loading of a texture set. I would wager that you will see a noticable speed DECREASE if you move MSFS to an external drive. Good luck, and report your findings!!-Greg

I think Greg's right, but with one caveat: IF you used the external drive as an additional, not replacement source for large FS texures, scuh as addon scenery folders, you might see a speed increase, or at least a decrease in loading times because there are two seek heads active at once.Allcott

I think USB2 throughput is about 60MBs, Firewire tops out at about 50MBs or so iirc. ATA speeds are faster certainly.The fact that the USB2/Firewire interface is slower than P/S-ATA is a secondary issue though since actual drive mechanics will limit sustained reads to around 50MBs anyway on some of the fastest drives - the interface speed is only of advantage for buffer reads which, in this case i.e. texture loading etc., are worthless.