Running Flight Simulator On External Hard Drive

[Guest machammer]

With the soon to be release of FS X, I am considering the purchase of an external hard drive to install it on.Is there anyone who is currently running FS 2004 or a beta person running FS X?If so can you please post your experience as it relates to performance. Also, what hard drive did you select.My current system:Intel P4 3.61 gig ramATI X600 video card.WD 200 GB SATA internal Hard DriveThanks in advance to all who reply.Bill

[greggerm 312]

USB2 external drives are probably too slow to comfortably run FS9 or FSX... They are best used as simple storage devices. It WOULD run, but I think load times would be exceedingly long as compared to a 'standard' internal ATA or SATA drive. If you can find and use an external SATA drive (??), then you're chances of success are greater! (*but I don't know how easily you can get them)I personally recommend purchasing a 36 or 74 GB SATA (internal) WD Raptor (10,000RPM) drive as a dedicated MSFS drive. The extraordinary high speed of the drive makes accessing your simulations thousands of BGL and texture files a breeze, and really makes a difference in the load times. :)

[Guest onetrackmind]

hi there, ive been using a lacie 250gb usb2 drive for a few years, runs great and faster than an external with fs9, and with the current fx beta. but ofcourse the newer drives may run better.G

[bobbyjoh 11]

I also use an external USB2 drive for my FS9 installation and it runs fine. I have 2gb of RAM so I don't need a lot of file access either.Bob Johnson

[greggerm 312]

(shrug!)I would have thought it to be slow!Glad to hear some folks have had worthwhile experiences!

[scott967 62]

Are the scenery areas cached to an internal drive on these USB setups?scott s..

[W2DR 1,859]

I run a default FS9 on an external drive and all is well. I have no idea, however, what would happen if I loaded in the PMDG 747, AS6, and UT but with just what comes with the plain-vanilla version it's fine. No scenery is cached, everything loads from the external drive. The drive is a 7200 RPM Western Digital 320GB model # WDXUB3200JBNN .Doug

[Guest rpjkw1155]

I have a WD 250GB drive in a USB connection 'box'. It's formatted, but I have yet to figure out how to get XP to recognize it. How do I set it up for use? I mainly want to store aircraft and other files I'm not using.Bob

[Guest brillo]

This is an important question, especially with FSX, Vista, etc., coming soon. I have heard/read STRONG opinions both ways. I encourage all who have some insight into this, to chime in HERE. My guess is that there are some combinations of hardware (software?) that work well with FS9/X on the external USB drive, and some that don't.What would HELP EVEN MORE is a few tests. I run FS9 from the internal HD, but have a Seagate 300 GB external USB HD with a copy of FS9 (the whole enchilada) on a 60 GB partition for spare parts. I know of a number of others who have the similar setup. Couldn't I just go to FS9 on the external HD and run it from there? Then get some kind of measurement? FPS or whatever, and compare it to the same flight using the internal HD, with all settings kept the same? I'm not geeky enough to know if this can be done, but it seems it should be possible, even easy. Then, with a number of folks reporting their RELATIVE measurements, it should be a valid comparison (internal vs. external for each system, not system vs. system) since only one variable is being changed. A general "trend" should be apparent, external vs. internal, shouldn't it? And a general conclusion could be made.That would be helpful information, to me. And then there's the assertion that FS and the OS should be on a different HD or at least a different drive. But that's a question for another day. Rob

[Guest brillo]

This is an important question, especially with FSX, Vista, etc., coming soon. I have heard/read STRONG opinions both ways. I encourage all who have some insight into this, to chime in HERE. My guess is that there are some combinations of hardware (software?) that work well with FS9/X on the external USB drive, and some that don't.What would HELP EVEN MORE is a few (simple?) tests. I run FS9 from the internal HD, but have a Seagate 300 GB external USB HD with a copy of FS9 (the whole enchilada) on a 60 GB partition for spare parts. I know of a number of others who have the similar setup. Couldn't I just go to FS9 on the external HD and run it from there? Then get some kind of measurement? FPS or whatever, and compare it to the same flight using the internal HD, with all settings kept the same? I'm not geeky enough to know if this can be done, but it seems it should be possible, even easy. Then, with a number of folks reporting their RELATIVE measurements, it should be a valid comparison for each test IF only the one variable is changed. A general "trend" should be apparent, external vs. internal, shouldn't it? Even if there is great variation in hardware, software, settings, etc., among the testers, because only one variable has been changed in each test, namely the drive FS runs from. That would be helpful information, to me. And then there's the assertion that FS and the OS should be on a different HD or at least a different drive. But that's a question for another day. Rob

[Guest CaffeineBomb]

I probably depends on the rest of your system in terms of whether the USB drive creates a bottleneck.I'm running a Dell Inspiron with a 1.4GHz Pentium M, 768MB RAM and a 64MB GeForce Go Fx5600 (please don't laugh!), the external USB drive is sooooooo not the bottleneck on this system! I didn't see any performance hit when I switched from the internal drive to the external.AndrewK

[Guest brillo]

Andrew,I also run FS9 with Insiron 9300, 2.12 GHz Pentium M, 1.5 GB RAM, and the stock 128 MB Intel Mobile 945/935 all-purpose chipset with the seagate 300 GB external HD. I get very good performance with FS9 on this funky little laptop and I agree with you on the external drive not being the bottleneck. I've not tried running FS9 from the external, but I have never had a problem running anything and everything else (simultaneously) from the external. I would like to see some folks do the test I suggested above, though. Just to get a reliable "N".Rob

[Guest CaffeineBomb]

Hey RobDid you buy the laptop with 1.5GB RAM or upgrade? I recently upgraded from 512MB to 768MB but didn't see too much improvement. I'm wondering whether I'll gain much going to 1GB and I was wondering how your system performed with 1.5GB.AndrewK

[Guest brillo]

Andrew,Yes, directly from Dell last January, had to talk to a number of Dell people to get the 1.5 GB RAM and then a few more to get it for a decent price. But they had the dual cores in their pocket and wanted to unload the "old models" so, great price in the end. My daughter has the 9300 with 512 RAM and regular display. Mine is two steps up, hi-res or something. Mention this because I think the fancy screen takes a little more of the CPU maybe, Like TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21 versus 19. My daughter's screen is more than sufficient, FS doesn't look much different (if at all) on hers compared to mine. To answer your question, FS9 works great. Sliders maxed right, 80-100% AI, lotsa clouds at SEATAC at sundown in the Grumman Goose -> 15-17 FPS. But lately, second monitor is futzing up and affects FPS. Usually get 3-5 more FPS when undocking screen and dragging to second monitor. Right now though, it goes down ~ 5 FPS when dragging view to second monitor. Don't know how that works, how it affects FPS. Think it's dying. Old CRT. I'm interested in knowing more about the value of a better vid card for this particular system. Some say the card isn't the thing. Some say it is. No one really mentions vid cards in laptops at all. Most say more RAM always helps, so I opted for that at purchase. Do you have more info about cards for Inspiron/laptops in general and improvements to FS? Rob Also, I think 2.13 GHz helps and 128 MB RAM for the video. That was the max then, went up since though.

[Guest CaffeineBomb]

Hi RobSounds like you're a few steps up from me in more than just the RAM. I sacrificed my ALL traffic to get decent framerates in any kind of cloudy weather. I think I'll be investing in some more RAM next time I have some spare cash. Its still a perfectly serviceable machine, I just have to remember to close the GPS and switch to the 2D panel when it gets cloudy - that'll give me up to 8FPS back, depending on the plane.As far as video cards go, I know that the Inspiron 8600 that I have will take a 128MB GeForce Go (I forget exactly which number), but it looks like its onboard rather than being any kind of upgradeable card. I tried to find somewhere selling them but no luck - not even on ebay!Andrew