Hey, I recently upgraded to a 640gb WD Black 32mb of cache and I have a WD blue 500gb with 16mb of cache that I was just going to put some files on to backup. I will be reinstalling FSX now and was wondering if it would be good to install it to the WD blue where there is nothing else... Or should i just stick to the faster WD Black where my main windows install is...

Are both disks 7200RPM?

Yes

Suggest you tranfer the content of your "black" to your "blue" ...WD has a free downloadable tool: http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddet...amp;wdc_lang=enAcronis True Image WD Edition SoftwareAcronis True Image WD Edition Software helps you to completely clone your current system drive onto your new WD hard drive. Cloning makes an exact copy of your old system drive on your new WD hard drive, including the operating system, applications, data, preferences, and email settings. Everything will be present and operate exactly as it did on your old hard drive.

Yes. Have your OS on the blue and FSX on the black

To a lot of you, this is probally a stupid question, but I am somewhat new to some of this technical stuff. What are the advantages to having FSX installed on a separate harddrive?

To a lot of you, this is probally a stupid question, but I am somewhat new to some of this technical stuff. What are the advantages to having FSX installed on a separate harddrive?

Not something that's FSX connected. Having any game or disk intensive application on separate drive is a huge bonus. Always.

To a lot of you, this is probally a stupid question, but I am somewhat new to some of this technical stuff. What are the advantages to having FSX installed on a separate harddrive?

Having FSX on its own drive allows all the FSX files to be located on the outer rings of the HD Platter.The outer portion of the disk spins faster then the inner section. The read arm does not have to make more swipes over the OS and program files to read the FSX files. This is th biggest con of a mechanical HD. The second important part is the size of the platter. Bigger the platter 1Tb vs 500gb allows for alot more aerial denisty. More files per sector and less movement of the read arm. Awsome program if you are using one drives Ultimate defrag.

To a lot of you, this is probally a stupid question, but I am somewhat new to some of this technical stuff. What are the advantages to having FSX installed on a separate harddrive?

The biggest advantage is being able to keep the disk heads positioned physically close to the area where FSX files are stored. If the OS, for example, is colocated on the same physical drive (along with the Windows paging file) then every time the OS does disk I/O it will move the heads away from the FSX area, meaning the next FSX I/O will have to wait a relatively long time (in electrical terms) for the heads to be repositioned back to where the FSX files are located.This is the same rationale for not having file indexing services or anti-virus scans running while FS is running, as it thrashes the heads all over the disk, slowing FS' disk accesses way down.Relative position of the data on the platters makes a tiny difference, and is mostly hyped in the realm of guys selling disk optimizer programs. As long as the files are contiguous (i.e. not fragmented) and are grouped close together on the platter, *where* they are on the platter is of minor significance.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Just an FYI, after installing FSX Gold/Acceleration/UTX/GEX/REXv2/FTX PNW/FSGenesis my dedicated FSX Hard drive showed 48% fragmentation. After Running Ultimate Defrag, 0.00%. More then just hype.. I am the first to call BS on a product but Ultimate Defrag is well worth the price of addmission. You can do the 14day trial, defrag your FSX drive and delete it if you dont like it. I have used it since FS9 and was blown away with the difference on my old rig. Dont need it on my main drive (SSD) but does wonders on a standard drive. Coolest feature is when you look at the picture of the platter and see a fragmented file, you can click on the red block and open that file and see whats in it and delete it or defrag just that sector. http://www.disktrix.com/ultimatedefrag_try.htmI would never push any product but i have learned so much from AVSIM community that this is well worth a look at..

Just a few things hondabuff.1. Why are you using an 80GB SSD as you primary HD, and FSX on a standard 7200 rpm?2. No offense, but you say your not pushing the product, yet your talking about how good it is and that we should try it.3. We don't judge here, but with only 22 posts, You need to earn a rep. before telling others to use programs and how to set up their system. If I was a rookie here, which I pretty much am, I would talk to someone like Bob who has 3000+ posts and a reputation. 4. Back on topic, if your not promoting the product "Ultimate Defrag", why is it in your sig. with your FSX software? We want to know about FSX stuff and comp specs, not what defrag utility you use. Look at my sig. Everythings either my hardware or FSX. No utilities. And that's the same with however many other usersNot being judgemental, just my 2 cents.

Just a few things hondabuff.1. Why are you using an 80GB SSD as you primary HD, and FSX on a standard 7200 rpm?2. No offense, but you say your not pushing the product, yet your talking about how good it is and that we should try it.3. We don't judge here, but with only 22 posts, You need to earn a rep. before telling others to use programs and how to set up their system. If I was a rookie here, which I pretty much am, I would talk to someone like Bob who has 3000+ posts and a reputation. 4. Back on topic, if your not promoting the product "Ultimate Defrag", why is it in your sig. with your FSX software? We want to know about FSX stuff and comp specs, not what defrag utility you use. Look at my sig. Everythings either my hardware or FSX. No utilities. And that's the same with however many other usersNot being judgemental, just my 2 cents.

Iam using a SSD because the operational use of the PC is 10times faster then a conventional Hard drive. Boot time/Shutdown time and opening of programs is instant vs. the limitations of a mechanical hard drive. 250mb/sec read times vs. 80mb/sec of mechanical HD.The 640Gb Caviar Black is one of the fastest 7200rpm hd's out there. Just because I dont post a guide of have 1000posts doesnt mean I cant contribute to the community. I'am a IT proffesional with a ERT Degree and share the same passion for Flight Sim as everyone else. I learned about the Defrag program on another Flight Sim forum a few years back and found out through my own expierence that it was worth its salt. How files are placed on your HD can make a big difference on FPS if your HD is constantly searching for the scenery files. For every one person like you who could care less about what defrag program Joe Blow uses, there might be 100 people who read this and say "huh, I never knew that defraggin my HD and file placement could be bottle necking my system". Your 2 cents was noted and you can have some change back... :(

So if I am understanding this correctly, you have your OS plus all your major program files all in 80GB of space? That doesn't seem right.You also said

How files are placed on your HD can make a big difference on FPS if your HD is constantly searching for the scenery files.

. If this is true, how come when I upgraded from a 7200RPM, to a 10,000RPM disk, and defragged with O and O, there was very little increase in FPS, but the Initial loading times were faster. Then when I u upgraded that to an SSD, loading times were almost instant, but no gain in FPS. Changing a harddrive and defragging will only help speed up loading times, it won't increase your FPS. The only time you will gain FPS is if you have a fast system, you HD has been full of junk for a few years and never been defragged. If you defrag this, yes there will be an FPS increase, but for the standard HD defrag, no.

So if I am understanding this correctly, you have your OS plus all your major program files all in 80GB of space? That doesn't seem right.You also said . If this is true, how come when I upgraded from a 7200RPM, to a 10,000RPM disk, and defragged with O and O, there was very little increase in FPS, but the Initial loading times were faster. Then when I u upgraded that to an SSD, loading times were almost instant, but no gain in FPS. Changing a harddrive and defragging will only help speed up loading times, it won't increase your FPS. The only time you will gain FPS is if you have a fast system, you HD has been full of junk for a few years and never been defragged. If you defrag this, yes there will be an FPS increase, but for the standard HD defrag, no.

LOL....do you really think that all your programs have to get installed only to the C: drive to work. You put the OS on the SSD and other programs on another HD. I run 3 hard drives, SSD for OS and antivirus and digital image suite. Microsoft office and adobe photo on my Backup 640 black along with a bunch of other programs and FSX gets it own HD to run on. The main FSX Cfg file is in its own folder on the SSD (Programs/Microsoft Games/FSX)and the rest of the FSX files are loaded on the other drive 640Gb Black. I had FSX on a Intel X25m 160GB and also a 300Gb Velociraptor and no difference in performance over my 640 Black, other then not waiting for the screen to load. UD allows you to put "directories close to MFT" and "Respect High Performance" make your exe* and dll* files on the outer portion of the HD platter for super fast read times, with out a doubt """increase the performance""" of FSX. There are so many sources that back this up on the web, just Google *Ultimate Defrag + FSX* and stop being a Yobbo. http://www.avsim.com/pages/0608/DiskTrix/defrag.htm

At what point did I say that you have to have all of your programs on one HD? I believe I said all your major programs. I said this because that is what you said, but of course you have edited your post to remove that factor of our conversation I can see. Oh, and so much for not promoting UD.

UD allows you to put "directories close to MFT" and "Respect High Performance" make your exe* and dll* files on the outer portion of the HD platter for super fast read times, with out a doubt """increase the performance""" of FSX.

Go somewhere else to advertise your software. Unless it's FS related, we don't want to hear about it.Also, what kind of "IT professional" uses the words LOL, and quotes from a programs website?And FYI, I'm also running 3x HD's, an SSD and 2x velociraptors.