I've just bought a new PC and given it one of Hitachi's "Ultrastar" 300Gb 15k RPM SAS drives: it gives very nice performance.But my previous PC had 2x15k SCSI drives configured as a RAID 0 and dedicated to FSX, with a third fast drive (also SCSI: SAS actually) for the operating system. Loading times for FSX were definitely faster back then.Incidentally, I meant to re-use my old SCSI RAID in my new PC, but unfortunately the case size of my new PC is too small for them (the graphics card comes too close to the drive cage). I improvised by leaving them loose in the case - and one of them promptly burnt out (literally: little puff of smoke and everything). I hadn't appreciated how hot those 15k babies get without proper spacing: expensive mistake.For backups: you might want to think about using external HDs for these, just in case something really nasty happens inside your case (such as a fire in one of your SCSI drives, for example ...)Tim

One thing to keep in mind with all these 10K+ drives: For FS, they will OnLy speed up the First FS program load and the First flight load after a fresh boot. After that, Vista does some magic and the FS program and subsequent repeat flights will load in < 10 secs - regardless of the drive installed - . These Raptors and SCSIs provide No in-game performance benefit under any circumstances. The 7200 RPMers are entirely capable of keeping up with any FS in-game data feed requirement.If one is looking for a FS performance increase, it's a LoT of $$$ to shave off a smidgen, - OnLy - , from the first post-boot FS program load, then initial flight load. Seems to me anyway.The best bet is to put everything on one drive and back it up to a second drive. In this case, simplicity really is the best answer. Use a modern defragger to keep FS on the outer rim of the boot drive. Actually, Vista (some flavors) comes with an Arconis like image maker. I use it to make a full disk image onto a second drive as my full, boot drive backup. I also keep my docs folder backed up separately on that same second drive . . . (and then a rewritable DVD of the most critical docs stuff in a fireproof safe!)

Thanks, Jeff. I just imaged my Raptor to the new Seagate 7200 with 32 mg. cache using Acronis, and I'll give it another shot early next week --traveling on business right now. I didn't fully understand a couple of things: the value of the Secure Zone, and the actual proficiency of the "My Computer" back up option. You've made those things much clearer.I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for taking the time to reply Jeff.

My understanding was that the Acronis Secure Zone was a bootable partition created on the boot drive. That secure zone also had the Acronis recovery program. If the boot disk's normal partition failed to boot, the drive would boot from the secure zone partition. Once running, the Acronis software could restore the disk's boot partition from an image that had been stored on that same boot partition (or, where else could the image be for this single drive solution? The secure zone partition is quite small). But I'm guessing here. Is this right? I've never used it.I Have used acronis to make manual and automated images to a second drive. The automated incremental (or difference) backup ended up filling my second drive To The Brim in only several days. The additional auto backups were way too big and simply stacked up. I tried the "retain # of backsup" options, but there was no holding it back. It worked fine for a single, manual backup, but clearing out the mess the incremental backup method always left was always a pain. *Tried Norton Ghost too. Same basic problem. I finally gave up and went with the simpler Vista feature. Vista's image function simply makes a whole drive image to a second drive. A newer image cleanly over writes the old one. No "folder size creep." To recover, boot from Vista's DVD and select recover from the tools menu.

Acronis can do the exact same thing through their imaging tool, and I don't have to depend on cagey Microsoft. Besides I don't have Vista and I'm not likely to in the very near future.What I would ultimately like to do is store several images on one drive, but that may not be possible. Sorry Sam, not sure why you're getting the disk creep issue -- I don't see that at all with True Image 11. Also, I now have 2 drives dedicated for back ups -- 700 and 500 gig.

Hi,there is a "law" that says "never argue with any software made by Microsoft". The default installation of FSX is C drive. As a very simple explanation, if you change the drive FSX will always search for C drive in first place. That's why it will slow your performance.RegardsAbrupto

i'm confused, MS or not, my software seems to know where its installed and doesn't scan the c: drive everytime it wants to find a file.did you delete your registry ?

Alex:I've been running FS9 on my new Seagate 500 gb with 32 mgb cache for a couple of days now and I THINK I get less blurries and better texture loading than I was with the Raptor.In any event, if I were to redo my build today knowing what I know now, I would forego the expense of the smaller Raptor and spend my money on a larger hard drive. The 160 gb. Raptor cost me about $170 USD, the 500 gb. Seagate $80. Programs load faster on the Raptor, but the large drive cache on the Seagate seems to induce better all around performance.Either way, though, I think you're going to be happy with what you end up with.

>Hi,>>there is a "law" that says "never argue with any software made>by Microsoft". The default installation of FSX is C drive. As>a very simple explanation, if you change the drive FSX will>always search for C drive in first place. That's why it will>slow your performance.>>Regards>AbruptoThis is most certainly NOT true...As for 'slow performance', a simple scan of a log output froma utility like Filemon.exe will show that there are FAR more searchesperformed by FSX within it's own directory for files that never existed.For instance, FSX will ALWAYS look for "sim.cfg" before it looks for"aircraft.cfg" when loading an aircraft. It will look for a folder with the name of a gauge it is trying to load before looking for a "cab" file. There are dozens of other instances.In spite of these 'illogical' searches, they don't slow FSX noticeably. Paul