Sorry to be still confused about this, I'm having a new system built with 2 x hard drives, 1 x 150gb Raptor and 1 x 500gb Seagate, from the posts I have read its seems that I should install FSX on one drive and the O/s on the other? The guy who is building the system is suggesting that the O/s being Vista 64 should be on the WD Raptor which will in his view make the system faster but I think he's wrong. I wanted FSX on the Raptor due to its access speed. Am I correct in this? Also how should the drives be designated "C" or "D" or doesn't it matter. Really would appreciate some help on this one. thanks

I'm not going to become embroiled in a debate about the relative merits and de-merits of particular HDs.But if you're installing in Vista 64, my suggestions would be (i) install FSX elsewhere than the default program files directory, because otherwise you'll encounter Vista 64's tendency to restrict write access to important sub-folders - which can upset FSX; and (ii) if you have two drives and if you have sufficient spare capacity, you might as well put FSX on the fastest drive and keep it as empty of other stuff as possible, as well as trying to defragment it using Nick_N's suggestions elsewhere on this forum. I've had pretty good results with this sort of setup (I think), although it is fair to say that my "FSX drive" is a SCSI RAID 0 array.Tim

Go with two 500GB Seagates. The raptor will only shave a couple of seconds off the first FSX game-load after a fresh boot (all subsequent game-loads will show No advantage . . . then shave another couple of seconds on initial flight-loads (all subsequent flight reloads will show no advantage). That's all you're gonna get for all that raptor-trouble and expense. The raptor in FS9 appears to provide no advantage at all. There is no game play advantage in either.The newest -11 Seagates will also get you a ~ 60 second boot, from beep to Vista sidebar. Load it all on one 500, defrag FS to the outer edge, then back up the entire system on the other 500. In this case simpler is better.

Ok thanks, however at this stage I cannot just swop HD's as the build is that far advanced, but thanks for your suggestion, I'm sure in FS9 that it doesn't make a lot of difference, so I guess I will install windows vista- 64 on the Seagate and put FSX on the Raptor which will keep the install as clean as possible and on the faster drive which with FSX I understand is very important.Jonny