Raptors in RAID or a SSD disk?

[BartEnder 2]

Hi there!I am using a WD VelociRaptor right now and I am very satisfied with it. But the blurries I see very often... It cames down to point, that the HDD led it always on, so the disk don't catch up with the scenery loading (I have few add-ons) with more than 140-150KIAS. When I hit the 'P' button for a few seconds, everything is OK for a few minutes.So I decided to spend some money on storage. Two things come to my mind: single SSD ~250GB with read at least 200MBps (no more can be achieved in SATAII) or another Raptor and set it in RAID. Here comes the questions...Which solution would be better?AHCI/NCQ mode should be off? I turned it on last time when deploying my rig and think that the performance is slightly less.RAID0 (striping) for better writing speed or RAID1 (mirror) for a better reading speed?I have a Asus Striker NSE II mainboard with nForce 790i chipset and Jmicron JMB363 RAID controller.Reliability is not considered at all, I do backups very often and loss of one Raptor would be not a problem in striping.I know that Windows Vista 32bit (the target system) has to be on a 4kB cluster size. It is a good option to create two partitions: small C: for an OS (approx 25GB) and the remaining for an FSX and do the clustersize 16 or even 32kB? You may also know, that this rig is for FSX only.

[Guest UlfB]

This question has been covered in several posts. Maybe these threads answer your question.http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=247993http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/Ya...?num=1208959973 Scroll down and you'll find a post by Nick "A NOTE ABOUT STORAGE PERFORMANCE"http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-pe...power,2279.html (an article on SSDs and degrading performance)Probably RAID0 VRaptors are the best choice, but the RAID0 should not be set up using on board raid controllers. See Nicks post "A NOTE ABOUT STORAGE PERFORMANCE".

[jordanal 70]

Go get yourself a third-party controller board for your raptor such as the one in my sig. Even with a single VRap, your performance will increase with the option to properly raid (256K) stripe later, if you add a second disk. Add all your single HD's as 'fixeddisk' to the controler (with a BBU) and you'll be golden. Then you shutdown the HD controller on the MB using the BIOS and save a few more cycles.See the controller setup link at the end of my sig.

[Guest Nick_N]

This system issue sounds more like a OS and system configuration problem.. possibly background activity or the OS has INDEXING enabled. I suggest this system needs to be correctly optimized first,

[BartEnder 2]

OK, here is the plan:I have orderer Patriot Warp V2 32GB for Vista only. The Raptor will be used exclusively for FSX and a 1TB Samsung 7200rpm drive for backups.I will disable the AHCI features (I noticed slight loss in HDD performance since last insalation when I have enabled it).The controller should be set as IDE emulation I guess.Also a single question: will it be possible to copy 'trusted' section from old fsx.cfg to a new one after installig all stuff?

[Guest Nick_N]

SSD is a WASTE and will most likely be a hindrance to perf over time till they get the bugs worked out of the platform.. NCQ/AHCI is a NETWORK multi-user opt... it WILL cause perf loss in a game system and should NEVER be activated. CATCH22 - SSD drives work BETTER with AHCI because the manufactures are designing their firmware to use the feature with SSD DIFFERENTLY than with mechanical drives. FORGET ABOUT MIXING SSD AND MECHANICAL - If you intend to play with SSD you best get a SSD controller card and DO NOT ENABLE AHCI in the main BIOS#1 mistake people make is they install Windows with AHCI ENABLED. When you do that, Windows configures itself DIFFERENTLY. DRAWBACK - If you do not enable AHCI when Windows installs you may not be able to enable it after if for some reason you wanted it enabled. There are workarounds for that which deal with screwing around with replacing driver files I would however NOT use NCQ for any gaming system regardless. I have never migrated a FSX.cfg for any new install. I let FSX build a new one and then edit the 4-5 settings that are needed for the setup. I do not know if the trusted section will transfer especially in the case where FSX is moved to another partition as I have never attempted that before. Never place the OS and FSX on the same drive unless you have no choice.. and if you do, install it to a ROOT DIRECTORY by itself, not into the program files folder

[BartEnder 2]

SSD is a WASTE and will most likely be a hindrance to perf over time till they get the bugs worked out of the platform..

I think we have to wait for a cheaper SSD drives and SATAIII (the 3Gbit is not enough for the fastest SSD according to the producers)

NCQ/AHCI is a NETWORK multi-user opt... it WILL cause perf loss in a game system and should NEVER be activated.

True, have tested it and regret

I have never migrated a FSX.cfg for any new install. I let FSX build a new one and then edit the 4-5 settings that are needed for the setup. I do not know if the trusted section will transfer especially in the case where FSX is moved to another partition as I have never attempted that before.

Neither do I. I do not want to migrate the whole fsx.cfg, only the 'trusted' section. Will give it a try and let You know

Never place the OS and FSX on the same drive unless you have no choice.. and if you do, install it to a ROOT DIRECTORY by itself, not into the program files folder

Always do it like this. But the last time the VelociRaptor was the only HDD in my rig and I do not want to make an additional partitionThaks guys for the clues, I will get back to this topic when everything will be finished.