Along with a 3 drive raid 0, I'm also running a 750GB Seagate -11. This drive can sustain 110MB/s xfer rates and a < 6ms access time. These 7200 RPM drives have come a long way, baby. If you keep your FS installation on the outer edge (Via O&O or Ultimate defrag) this is what you'll get. Remember, the Raptor is getting 120MB/x xfers and 6ms access times.There is no - discernible - CPU usage increase using a mobo's onboard raid capability. Additional CPU usage is certainly occurring, but will have no - dicernable - affect on gameplay. However a drop of water will increase an ocean level. There can be no argument there. Separate drives will provide no - discernible - difference in game play. Do a defrag once week. Keep your drive tidy and keep FS on the outer edge. A single volume (raid or not) will provide optimal performance.The new Raptors are $300 for 300Gbs of storage. The -11 seagates are $130 for 750GB of storage. For the price of a good defragger, the 7200 will provide performance that will be indistinguishable from the raptor for 1/5th the cost. A seagate -11 (or equivalent), mobo based, 2 drive raid will Beat a single raptor in Every gameplay metric.However, a raided raptor with a 3rd party raid card will beat even that, by a smidge . . . for ($300 x 2)+ $450 = , ahh heck, just call it an additional thousand bucks. Speed costs, but there's no point in waisting bucks on rightfully identified but - indiscernible - technical factors.

At this point, I am nearly certain I will not be running a Raid 0 configuration. So, if I ended up with one of the new 300GB Raptors, and then a 750GB Barracuda 7200.11 (or Western Digital 7200RPM equivalent), what should I Install on each drive? I am leaning towards putting all of my games onto the Raptor, and then the OS and everything else onto the 7200RPM drive. Would this be foolish? Should I just put the OS and all my games onto the Raptor, and then everything else onto the 7200RPM drive?Also, as far as Defrag software, what is the best software to use for this? Ultimate Defrag, DiskKeeper, or O&O? I am using Ultimate Defrag right now. I would like something that optimally locates files to the outer portions of the drive, and defrags as well.

>I am leaning towards putting all of my games onto the Raptor, and then the OS and everything else onto the 7200RPM drive.That would be the way to do it. > Also, as far as Defrag software, what is the best software to use for this?I'm not really sure that there is a best. I have used Ultimate Defrag, Diskeeper and O&O. I personally prefer O&O because of its simplicity and ease of understanding.

First let me preface that I know about as much about hard drives as I do RAM,...next to nothing. But wouldn't putting your 'database' programs like GEX on the same drive as the OS cause them to become fragmented in the same manner as you are trying to prevent from happening to the FSX installation? If the OS is causing the fragmentation it seems that it should be quarantined to its own drive?I understand that at least two drives is preferable for FSX. Would someone please describe what benefit will be experienced in FSX from using 1 or 2 Raptors vs. say Seagate 7200.11s or Western Digital SE16s? I've seen the specs and benchmarks, but what's the actual difference with FSX? Its hard to justify a couple more hundred dollars for a few seconds quicker initial loading times. If it results in noticable smoother flights, crisper textures, ect., then that is different. All I've read about the Raptors is that they are the fastest you can get for a desktop drive. A Ferrari is fast too, but you can only take advantage of it on the right roads with minimal traffic, not much benefit for average city driving. Well it probably has some other social benefits.....I'm trying to make a cost/benefit decision on hard drives. The cost part is easy, trying to determine the benefit is difficult.Thanks,Ted

The 'database' type programs write new textures to FSX while FSX is offline. Nothing new gets added to the databse once the 'databse' type program is installed. After installation and your defrag run/s on your OS drive the 'database' type program will be defragged. Installing the 'database' type program on your FSX drive, does nothing more than utilize valuable addon space hence the recommendation to put it on the OS drive.Having two seperate drives one for the OS and one for FSX, in m opinion results in a much better perfroming FSX. Loads are better, flights smoother and crisper testures (less blurries). However much of your FSX performance will have to do with how you have your specific system configured and setup for FSX.Having said that you will get a further performance benefit from the Raptors. To what extent, I can not quantify. I can tell that two Raptors (one for the OS and one for FSX) perform better with FSX than three 7200RPM WD drives with 16MB caches (one for the OS and two in onboard RAID 0 for FSX).

Like the ram issue, these accurately observed technical potentials will end up being quantified by subjective assessments. It's going to be that close.For instance, I find it hard to imagine that FS needs (or can even use) in-flight data transfers at 100MB/s at X 6ms access rates. It's even harder to imagine that an increase to 120MB/s x 5ms would make any observable difference. We have recently observed an extended conversation that supports this assessment. The ram thread described that processing power is the actual bottleneck for scenery loading (and all other) efficiencies. This claim insisted that ram efficiencies would fix the blurries (and all other in-game processing based restrictions. AI/AG/et al). Any HD data that is provided to the in-game software engine is "raw." It must be processed. Implicit in the ram-claim is the assertion that even if raw data is fed into the system by a 15KRPM fiber channel, blurries will occur. A lowly, single Seagate -11 at 110MB/s x 6ms will provide plenty of raw material if only we'd get on board the DDR3 express. Conversely, if your processing power (DDR2/CPU Clock/et al) can't keep up, blasting it with a higher capacity (raw) data feed won't help. I expect this assessment of the technical properties of FS is accurate. DDR3 ram speeds Will help we-the-masses someday, just not today. Inflight game experience will Not be HD limited by any modern HD.Maintaining data position and keeping things tidy argues for a second drive for the FS install. However modern defraggers can maintain FS's disk position on a boot disk - and keep the install tidy - with a defrag run once a week. Fundamentalists might want to schedule a defrag run every night at 3am. At best, a separate drive is a convenience, not a performance enhancer.With the install on the outer edge and properly defragged, it simply does not matter if the install is on the boot drive or a second drive. ALL drive performance characteristics will be the same. So, it finally boils down to load times. Let's do a very unscientific comparison. With a quad @ 2.4 and 4G/Ram / 3 drive raid 0 @ 300MB/s x 8ms access / FSX Utimate defragged to the outer edge on this boot raid / Preload disabled / 1) It takes 35 seconds to get to the FSX splash screen on the 1st load after a fresh boot. After FSX shutdown, the splash screen reloads in 10 seconds. With all sliders On-the-Left side of the scenery tab's screen @ 100%, and all AI/AG off. Special Effects Med and Cloud Distance Max: 2) All Missions load in 20-30 seconds. All mission reload in 10 seconds. I splurged on the raid this time. What cha gettin' on those various setups? Was is worth it?

Thanks for the replys and clarification guys. I was guessing that was how the "database" programs probably worked Sargeski. I guess I'm learning something here. :) Since I'm just building a Q6600/ddr2 system, I think I'm going to get two 7200.11s or SE16s drives and separate the OS and FSX for now. Maybe Raptors on the next build.Sam, did you notice any improvement besides load times from adding RAID 0 to your drives?My current P4 3.0 with 2 gb of DDR-400 and a single Seagate 160gb 7200.7 loads FSX to the select-a-flight page after a fresh boot in 50 seconds and reloads in 10 seconds. That's also with NickN's system tweaks, which improved things noticeably. Didn't time the mission load times but it sure seems to take a lot longer than 20-30 seocnds. It's also very dependent on my scenery settings for the flight I'm loading.Alright..enough research, time to purchase and build. I'm tired of limping along with this P4. :-yellow1 Thanks,Ted

My Q6600 build came up on the raid. The single 7200, -11 came along later and it's only been a dedicated backup. I too came from that same P4 / 2.8 (O/C'd to 3.2. ohh my!), 2G with that same 160WD. Actually, I still have it running with 2 of the 160s raided on an old PATA addin card. I just use it on an adjacent desk to keep a couple of web pages up. I have it networked in and it's a real pleasure to have a second, fully functional computer around. I run a networked FSearth on it, but I dread having to actually use it for real stuff. From the current box, its a real 'click-and-wait' experience. I still have FSX loaded and I tried a program start. 80 seconds. I was sure the system had locked up! That's my general impression every time I use it: "This thing's broke!" I hadn't let Ultimate reposition FSX, so that's in progress now (Check back in next Tuesday, ughh). If you are going to split up the data, think about using opposite drives to maintain an Acronis images of their rack-mate. Splitting 'em up might as well do you some good. ;)

Well, I had run a two-drive raid-0 with various onboard chipsets for most of my FS9 years and then switched to my current Raptors. It is my personal opinion that the speed at which the texture tiles appear, and FS9/X start times, is better on the Raptors, and I get better FS performance with the reduced overhead of not running the chipset with raid enabled. Honestly, take one Raptor and dedicate just one as FS drive and that is a very good begining for the average and intermidate Joe.Also, you don't have to worry about one of the raid-drives failing thereby ruining the whole array and loosing everything.The average FS enthusist does not need to run FS on a three drive raid-0, the benefits are neglagable at best and a single Raptor is more cost effective and trustworthy, and much easier to backup and image using Acronis or Ghost.Next is the VelocaRaptors (SP) baby.... Dang Nick, I see you already got 'em on board.. How do they compare to the SATA-1 Raptors?

I tried a 2 drive RAID0. I didn't notice much of an improvement, initial loading is still painfully slow.Christian