Why do we put fs on separate drive?

[rpowers 5]

I have always installed fs on its own separate drive.We are having to reinstall windows and my computer guy is questioning me as to why I do this.They are mechanical drives.Also,does fs pull off the hard drive after it is loaded when flying?I am trying to explain the reasons for this but I am not a computer guru.Anyone with a good explanation that I could take to him would be appreciated.Thanks,Ron

[alainneedle1 97]

I have always installed fs on its own separate drive.We are having to reinstall windows and my computer guy is questioning me as to why I do this.They are mechanical drives.Also,does fs pull off the hard drive after it is loaded when flying?I am trying to explain the reasons for this but I am not a computer guru.Anyone with a good explanation that I could take to him would be appreciated.Thanks,Ron

One of the main reason (I think) is that mechnical drive will loose perf. at more than 50% full, as of SSD will need to be full at 90% before loosing perf. so if you have a lot of addons you can fill up your drive pretty fast if it's not a 1TB... .Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I have always installed fs on its own separate drive.We are having to reinstall windows and my computer guy is questioning me as to why I do this.They are mechanical drives.Also,does fs pull off the hard drive after it is loaded when flying?I am trying to explain the reasons for this but I am not a computer guru.Anyone with a good explanation that I could take to him would be appreciated.Thanks,Ron

Two reasons:Performance is smoother if FSX can read scenery textures (which it does all the time while flying) withoutinterference from Windows operations (which occur whenever Bill Gates decides it is time..)The C: drive tends to get fragmented - and a separate FSX drive can be kept in optimal condition

[Bob Scott 7,719]

I think the biggest advantage is keeping the HDD heads unencumbered from routine OS housekeeping and positioned for FS disk activity. If everything is on a single drive, every time the OS needs to do I/O, for example to swap something to/from the page file, the heads get repositioned and are not available while that operation is underway. Also, you maintain some dedicated cache with a separate drive--most importantly the one on the HDD itself, which with modern HDDs can be as much as 64 or 128MB.There's some marginal increase in I/O performance if FS is placed on the outer tracks of an HDD.Maintenance of the FS drive is a lot simpler if it's not the boot drive, as well. FS, once installed and de-fragged, is mostly a read-only database of mesh, landclass, objects, textures etc, so it doesn't tend to fragment much. You can also enable file indexing and compression on a per-drive basis, so you could enable indexing just on the FS drive without the performance impacts that come with using it on a drive where the contents are constantly changing, or compression on volumes used purely for archival and storage.I still think it's a good idea. I'd also note that many of these points are invalidated for SSDs.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

[dmaher 0]

I wish I could remember why ;)I recall there was a question put to ACES (AVSIM San Diego 2005) and their suggestion was to install FS on a separate drive....if possible.Not a partition BTW…it needed to be a second physical drive.I suspect the problem they were discussing was a scenery issue. Possibly, the slower hard drives of those days couldn’t stream scenery fast enough when you flew at high speeds…something to that effect.Whatever the issue, I do remember years later deciding for myself it was no longer a factor…so I no longer subscribe to this advice anymore.So your question should be put to MS next time we have a chance ;)However there are other reasons like posted above, as well as good housekeeping and organization…so it’s not wasted effort if you prefer.Unfortunately you can’t reinstall Windows on your boot drive without reinstalling FS…as far as I know.If that was the case I’d still use a separate drive today.

Also, does fs pull off the hard drive after it is loaded when flying?

Yeah it does. It streams scenery from disk. It’s unavoidable…because it’s a large world.But it adds some limits and constraints to a game, and generally designers prefer to avoid streaming the world if at all possible.It’s something we should account for when comparing the FS world to games that load the entire world at startup.

[rpowers 5]

Thanks for the replies.My computer guy wants me to install FS on C drive so that he can clone it and then put it on a SSD drive for me to try to see if it improves performance.From info I have been getting from forums it will only load faster,not run better.So,I think I am opting to put it back on my separate e drive.My system is a 4 year old quad core.2.3 ghz I think.Ron

[Gary A 8]

Thanks for the replies.My computer guy wants me to install FS on C drive so that he can clone it and then put it on a SSD drive for me to try to see if it improves performance.From info I have been getting from forums it will only load faster,not run better.So,I think I am opting to put it back on my separate e drive.My system is a 4 year old quad core.2.3 ghz I think.Ron

I hate cloning, just a personal preference, I believe strongly in clean installs.With an SSD it matters not that FSX resides on the same drive as the OS (no fragmentation issues with SSD). A seperate drive is recommended for mechanical drives only primarily to keep the data on the faster outside edge of the disc thus increasing "transfer rates." Having FSX on a seperate disc also as others have said reduces fragmentation. My dedicated FSX drive hardly ever fragments.A properly defraged disc reduces head seek time making it faster.SSD will improve performance when coupled with the OS. Small file reads are faster, fragmentation is not an issue and start times of applications are greatly reduced. There are advantages however if I had a 4-year old system, the last place I would spend money is on the HDD. Focus in order should be 1) CPU 2) Memory 3) Video card 4) HDD