I am curious to hear if anyone has any experience running FSX on both a single HD, and on two HD's in a Raid-0 configuration. Could you tell a performance difference between the two? I am trying to decide if I am going to install two Raptor's in a Raid-0 configuration, and then two 7200 RPM drives also in a Raid-0 configuration. Or, if I am going to install one Raptor and one 7200 RPM drive by themselves.From what I am reading, performance boosts from Raid-0 configurations is a myth for most Desktop computing applications. Any comments about this would be greatly appreciated.

There is no apprecable performance difference in games with RAID-0. If you are editing video or manipulating large files (4GB and up) RAID-0 will increase performance. Of course anything in RAID-0 will always sythentically benchmark well (which is NOT a reflection of real world performance).Your best off to install your OS on one Raptor and then install FSX on its own dedicated Raptor.What you been reading is correct it's pretty much myth and placebo.

The raid 0 will get you faster transfer rates. This translates into faster flight (or level) load times. It seems to make No difference to in-game play dynamics. I'm running a 3 drive raid 0 and am now completely spoiled. Flights load very quickly, along with every other program I use. Boot times are almost startling. This is not just an "ahh, I kinda think . . . " experience. One's impression will be immediate and the improvement will be obvious. I still have my old box running with a single HD. I dread having to use it at all anymore. The Entire computer usin' experience Will Be crisper, more responsive . . . but it Did Not help FSX frame rates or my in-flight scenery loading experience. Raid can improve some aspects of computer usin', but not all. I really see no point in having any program installed on a dedicated drive, FSX included. If a user has a new raptor (don't even bother with the old ones) and a 7200, setup the raptor as the boot drive and install everything on it. Use the 7200 as a data storage/backup drive. Use Ultimate defrag to place FSX at the outer edge of the raptor. There's simply no point in having FS on a separate HD with the tools we have available today. One thing to keep in mind is that a three, 250 GB drives, 7200 RPM, Raid-0 will provide 2.5 times the storage and better overall GeNeraL system performance, at the same cost as a single 300GB raptor. Want it all? Raid up three of those new raptors. It's all available to the dollar'd user, but the raptor's cost/benefit ratio is still ExTreEm. It's the same old story. "Speed costs. How fast do you want to go?"

Thanks for the comments. I do have a question about installing the OS on one drive, and then FSX on another. I will be buying a new 300GB Raptor that will be coming out later this month. It will retail for around $300, so I will probably only buy 1, and then my second drive will be a larger capacity (>or= 500GB) 7200 RPM drive. I am starting to think that I will install Vista 64 Bit onto the 7200 RPM drive, along with all other non-gaming software and documents that I use. I would then install FSX, and all other games that I play, onto the 10,000 RPM Raptor. Would this help, or hurt, my overall performance?Furthermore, I am a little scared about making the leap to Vista, and to a 64 Bit OS. Therefore, I am considering duel-booting Windows XP 32 Bit along with Vista 64. If I were to do this, how should I alter my setup from above? Should I even buy a cheap low capacity HD to install Windows XP onto, or just partition my large capacity 7200 RPM drive to install XP right next to Vista?

What specific concerns do you have that are making you consider dual booting?? I had them at one time but not anymore. Vista x64 is a very stable platform with excellent driver support. Enjoy your WD Velociraptor when you get it. Looks like a nice to have drive. ;)

Sam,Do you have all 3 drives hooked up in one Raid-0 array or two drives in the array and one for storage?Are you using a motherboard based RAID or a separate RAID card?Thanks,Ted

I guess I am most concerned about going from a 32-Bit to 64-Bit OS. But, I must admit, I am starting to think that I may not mess with a duel-boot because I am seeing many people say exactly what you are saying. It is really beginning to sound like it isn't necessary. I may not even fool with it.So, if I don't fool with it, my optimal hard drive management setup would logically be to put my OS and games (including FSX and all add-ons) on the Raptor, and then everything else on the larger storage drive. Any advice in this area?

>Thanks for the comments. >>I do have a question about installing the OS on one drive, and>then FSX on another. I will be buying a new 300GB Raptor that>will be coming out later this month. It will retail for>around $300, so I will probably only buy 1, and then my second>drive will be a larger capacity (>or= 500GB) 7200 RPM drive. >I am starting to think that I will install Vista 64 Bit onto>the 7200 RPM drive, along with all other non-gaming software>and documents that I use. I would then install FSX, and all>other games that I play, onto the 10,000 RPM Raptor. >>Would this help, or hurt, my overall performance?I would say put also your OS on the faster raptor.

If one is going to use a new raptor, everything should go on that drive and the 7200 delegated to misc storage. I'd be really interested to hear the argument for using a separate HD for FS. It makes no sense to me. Modern defraggers will put whatever a user wants on the outer edge of the HD. That's as good as it can get on any HD. But even a raptor seems a hard sell.For instance, I'm using 3 drives in raid 0. A 4th is used for general backup. I'm using the Mobo's raid capability and Intel's Matrix storage manager. I got these three seagate 250gig HDs for $200. Raided, that's 700GB of storage getting ~ 300MB/s transfer rates and 10ms access times. The 300GB raptor is $300. It has Half the transfer rate and Half the storage capacity (only 300GBs of storage, only 120MB/s transfer rates), but with a decreased 4ms access time. This is big expense. A raptor will cost me an additional $100 out of the gate because I will immediately need to buy another 300GBs to make up the capacity difference. So far, I'm $200 in the hole. Also, the raptor will never be capable of my raid's transfer rate at Any cost. My HD subsystem's cost just doubled. What will it get me? First, there will be no in-game performance advantage. Any modern HD does not bottleneck in game performance. Once the flight (or COD / Crysis level) is loaded, a raptor and any 7200 will provide identical performance. There will be no FPS difference, nor scenery loading fidelity, nor speed-of-load increase. So, this is entirely about Flight / Level loading times. Will a raptor's 2X faster access time advantage make up for a 2X disadvantage in transfer rates. Not by much, if at all . . . but let's say "yes" anyway. Here's the real question. Is it worth $200 to shave 2 seconds off a flight / level load time? That is a $100 per second cost-to-benefit ratio and just makes no sense to me. I have buckets of cents, but not many dollars. In all these cases (CPU, memory, HD, Raid card, Vcard performance) I'm getting 95%+ of it, but still wish I could spend tons of money to get that last little bit of "performance enhancement." It's just way we po folk have to live!

> Any modern HD does not bottleneck in game performance.Don't be so sure: Maybe only a Raptor can keep-up with loading photo-real scenery when flying at 250 KIAS at 1,000 ft...Cheers,jahman.

Scenery trends (photo scenery too) are toward fewer, larger files. All scenery (photo too) will favor high transfer rate storage setups. Access times will matter less and less. Raided raptors and raided 7200 drives will preform equally, 'cept the raptor will cost 3X more. Anandtech is following the RaptorX rollout, here: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3303Anand compared Crysis level load times. Their test showed the Raptor was about about 1 second faster than a single 7200 at ~ 35 seconds. I have Crysis and boy, that seemed like a long time. I did a very unscientific test. I just picked levels at random. The longest level load was 20 seconds. Generally, Crysis level loads were were 12-15 seconds. That's with a ~ $200, 3 drive raid 0 with 700GBs of Very fast storage.I'm sure the raptor has it's place, but it's not much of a gamer's setup. Faster, bigger and cheaper setups are available.

Considering the extreme load times in FSX it

Thanks for all the information. I am definitely starting to have second thoughts about buying a Raptor. But, as you could probably guess, this brings up a few other questions.1) What are the best performing 7200 RPM HD's for gaming and overall use?2) Is buying one larger capacity drive just as good as buying two smaller capacity drives and running them in a Raid-0? In other words, should I buy 2 500-750 GB 7200 RPM drives and run them separately, or should I run them in a Raid-0 configuration. Would I have nearly the same performance either way?Here is some interesting articles I have found in regards to Raid-0 (this is only a few of what I have read. There are even more articles out there claiming the same things):http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2974http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.ph...gleDriveVsRaid0The main idea that I am finding out is that Raid-0 configurations look good in benchmark testing, but really don't make a difference in overall performance in most desktop applications (such as gaming). Perhaps this is not the case in FSX, I just don't know.At this point, considering only 7200 RPM HD's, do you have any suggestions on which drive gives the best performance? I would probably be leaning towards two 750 GB Seagate Barracuda's (7200.11) if running them separately, or two 500 GB drives if running them in Raid-0. I also know that WD has a very nice 7200 RPM performing drive I would consider as well.Thanks for all the input on this.

>Thanks for all the information. I am definitely starting to>have second thoughts about buying a Raptor. But, as you could>probably guess, this brings up a few other questions.>>1) What are the best performing 7200 RPM HD's for gaming and>overall use?>>2) Is buying one larger capacity drive just as good as buying>two smaller capacity drives and running them in a Raid-0? In>other words, should I buy 2 500-750 GB 7200 RPM drives and run>them separately, or should I run them in a Raid-0>configuration. Would I have nearly the same performance>either way?>>Here is some interesting articles I have found in regards to>Raid-0 (this is only a few of what I have read. There are>even more articles out there claiming the same things):>>http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2974>>http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.ph...gleDriveVsRaid0>>The main idea that I am finding out is that Raid-0>configurations look good in benchmark testing, but really>don't make a difference in overall performance in most desktop>applications (such as gaming). Perhaps this is not the case>in FSX, I just don't know.>>At this point, considering only 7200 RPM HD's, do you have any>suggestions on which drive gives the best performance? I>would probably be leaning towards two 750 GB Seagate>Barracuda's (7200.11) if running them separately, or two 500>GB drives if running them in Raid-0. I also know that WD has>a very nice 7200 RPM performing drive I would consider as>well.>>Thanks for all the input on this. RAID-0 is not going to give you a boost for FSX. If you are using onboard RAID, it is more overhead for the CPU to deal with (which is going to take clock cycles away from FSX plain and simple).Faster access times will effect texture loading contary to what you have been previously told (which will directly effect blurries).What it boils down to is this, do you want to spend the money and get the best performing hardware that you can for FSX or do you want to save a few dollars and sacrifice some performance. Its that simple and that is your decision.I've ran FSX with onboard RAID in RAID 0, RAID 0+1, RAID 1 and the best performance I get out of FSX is without onboard RAID.The concept behind using two drives, one for FSX and one for the OS is there will be less seeking going on with two drives vice one drive. I've also ran the OS and FSX together on one Raptor as well as my current configuration of a drive for my OS and a drive for FSX. FSX runs better with two drives.FSX will run fine with the OS on one drive and FSX on the same drive, however it has been my experience that FSX runs much better with dedicated drives.

>RAID-0 is not going to give you a boost for FSX. If you are>using onboard RAID, it is more overhead for the CPU to deal>with (which is going to take clock cycles away from FSX plain>and simple).>>Faster access times will effect texture loading contary to>what you have been previously told (which will directly effect>blurries).>>What it boils down to is this, do you want to spend the money>and get the best performing hardware that you can for FSX or>do you want to save a few dollars and sacrifice some>performance. Its that simple and that is your decision.>>I've ran FSX with onboard RAID in RAID 0, RAID 0+1, RAID 1 and>the best performance I get out of FSX is without onboard>RAID.>>The concept behind using two drives, one for FSX and one for>the OS is there will be less seeking going on with two drives>vice one drive. I've also ran the OS and FSX together on one>Raptor as well as my current configuration of a drive for my>OS and a drive for FSX. FSX runs better with two drives.>>FSX will run fine with the OS on one drive and FSX on the same>drive, however it has been my experience that FSX runs much>better with dedicated drives.This is the best answer in this threadRAID0 will enhance FSX performance but not on a motherboard or cheap PCI RAID solution. It requires a professional RAID card with onboard DDR memory and a large STRIPE or BLOCK size for RAID to have true value to FSX. As for 2 drives, absolutely... a primary reason is because you are getting rid of the dynamic Windows OS and keeping the FSX install clean and free of the constant fragmentation that takes place in a Windows install. Another good reasons is because addons like GEXn and FEX which are 'database' programs can be installed to the Windows drive and feed FSX textures from there, again keeping the FSX drive free space available over time. Addons like UTX or aircraft must be installed into FSX however the 2 drive solution allows more options and keeps the FSX install in much better condition for performance.No partitions should be used for the Windows or FSX drives. Only use partitions for storage and backup drives.The Raptor is not about faster FSX load times.. its about faster access for every file seek. When teamed together with the proper drive layout and defrag solution the Raptor is worth the investment. A 10K platter speed does have a significant impact of texture and scenery loads however as was mentioned above... motherboard RAID solutions eat CPU cycles so Raptors on motherboard RAID in FSX is a waste of money for those expensive drives.I have a set of VRap's... awesome drivesPast certain video card criteria FSX is all about CPU and memory speed. Anything that eats CPU, slows FSX performance