In building my new computer I was just wandering if there would be any advantage (noticable) to putting FS9 on its own hard drive (36.7 GB Western Digital Raptor with it 10K rpm) as appose to just putting it on the main seagate 160GB serial ATA? If there is an advantage any advise on how to set it up if their is tweeks and what kind of preformance boost might I see?Any help would be great.NP

I bought a Raptor three weeks ago, and have been very happy with it. While it's difficult to predict if your new system will perform better with it, I will affirm one thing for sure: application load times are much faster. More than 30% faster!One of the reasons I bought the Raptor is it's 5 year warranty. While I doubt that I'll still be using the drive then, I feel more secure knowing that WD had enough confidence in the technology to offer a warranty that long. Some folks will say the drive is louder than most but I've not noticed a difference (the system fans are louder). I would recommend a hard drive cooler (the ones that mount to the bottom of the drive).The Silicon Image drivers seems to be the pick of the litter. I installed with the .32 set, but I've heard that the .40 drivers work well also. The latest MS WHQL SATA drivers are the SiI .40 drivers.You'll need to d/l the drivers to a floppy disk. During the WindowsXP install you'll be prompted about adding SCSI drivers. Just follow the prompts.Hope this helps,

yes it does help alot. Is there a way to make it where when I format the drive the drive is not a slave but its own boot up system so that its only reading that drive since it will be a second drive?NP

The newer 74Gb Raptors have improved seek times and other improved specs from the older 36Gb. WD decided not to remake the 36's but rather just ship the 74Gb with fixes from some of the problems with the 36's. I've just installed a 74 but nothing is on it yet. By the way, I had no prompts for drivers with the install. Also, I was not sure what to use for "allocation size" during the partitioning step so I just used "default." If this was not right, I would love it if someone would tell me.sjKEWR

Hi guysThis post is an example, why the internet is such a great thing... Thanks for the question and reply fellas. And thanks to Sir Tim! The raptor looks like he really deserves the name. And I strongly agree with the argument of considering purchasing, with an eye on the guarantee duration. Very, very good point. I'm running an nForce2 board, which occasionaly 'consumes' HDs apparently. So, it's WD-JB all the way. On the JB-series however, 'only' a three year guarantee. Thanks too, for the tip on how to install, Greg. As a matter of fact, a friend and I gloriously failed, exactly there on sunday. What? Ofcourse not, we didn't RTFM... But he's a youngster, and I haven't met many kids who read, prior to doing. And I like to let them do it in their own way... You may otherwise get those 'wise slow old ####' kinda remarks... Hihi. I barely try to make sure, they don't totally screw up. Anyway, if you don't mind, I have a question or two: If you were, for example, experiencing the 'stuts,' would the use of the raptor improve your gameplay overall? I mean, only faster loading times alone, perhaps wouldn't justify a purchase, don't you think so? Also, are you running more than 1 HD? Or do you run sim and OS on the raptor? Please elaborate a little, what it did for your FlyTendo? Curiously looking forward to yr comments. Thanks and kind regardsJaap

Hi Jaap,"I have a question or two: If you were, for example, experiencing the 'stuts,' would the use of the raptor improve your gameplay overall?"I don't believe so. The stutters are rarely a result of hard drive choice. They are born of FUBAR'd chipset drivers or video drivers or sound drivers or DX (or quite often poor software programming)... or a combination of all or some of the above.I watch my hard drive activity while I'm flying. I don't want to see it getting hit very often (though it's difficult to configure WinXP without some sort of swap file... and XP likes to hit it). If it does seem "overly active", then I start looking at my system drivers. Fortunately. I don't see much HD activity."I mean, only faster loading times alone, perhaps wouldn't justify a purchase, don't you think so? "I bought the Raptor last month when my FS9 came down with a bad case of "CTDitise". I thought my old Maxtor was getting ready to give up the ghost, so ordered a new hard drive. So now I've come to believe the old drive is OK, but I'll keep the Raptor in place. I'm happy with it."Also, are you running more than 1 HD? Or do you run sim and OS on the raptor?"Just the one drive. Everything is on three NTFS partitions. Most of my data is safely stored on CD-RW's."Please elaborate a little, what it did for your FlyTendo?"Can't say much about that... my FlyTendo is off my machine right now (CTD's and CTD's and CTD's). While I have been testing with it over the past 3 weeks it did load faster. I saw no real performance improvement, though. (Again, HD choice has little to to with overall system performance).In closing... here's a question: Do you NEED a new hard drive? If not, then I wouldn't buy a Raptor (or any other). But if you do have the need for a new hard drive, then the Raptor would serve you well.Cheers,

Greg,You've come thru twice on this thread with some great insight, knowledge and tech know how. Thanks. Currently I am putting the finishing touches on my Barebone system which I should be ordering next week. My plans were to just have the 160GB seagate serial HD but read that the Raptor was a very good choice with a price tag to accompany it. As you state in your closing no need to upgrade/add but if new its a great HD. The Flight Sim is my main app that I run and am building the new system around it. I have no idea how to partition a hard drive so my second thought was to just add a second HD and put all hte files there. I think I'm going to go with my orginal config of my system and after some time of test and enjoying consider adding the Raptor.NPMy new system will be:Case: maxpoint CS-5171LBFS-SProcessor/CPU: Intel P4 3.2GHZ 512K 800FSB SOCKET 478 RETAIL CPUMoBo: ASUS P4C800-E DELUXE 800FSB MULTI-RAID LAN Chipset: Intel 875P Chipset w/ 800 MHz FSB Memory:2 x Kingston 512MB PC3200 NONECC DDRAM Memory =1024MBHard Drive:Seagate Serial 160GB 7200RPM S-ATA(optional)2nd Hard Drive: 36.7 GB Western Digital RaptorVideo Card: GeForce FX 5900 SESound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PlatinumOPTICAL 1 drive: Ricoh RW5240A 4X DVD+RW/+R DriveOPTICAL 2 drive: Lite-on LTC-48161 48X24X48 CDRW 16X DVD Combo Floppy Drive: 1.44MB 3.5" Generic Floppy DriveOperating System: Microsoft Windows XP ProFan controller: Maxpoint UC-A8FATR4Keyboard:ZIPPY EL-715 SUPER SLIM ELECTRON LUMINESCENT KEYBOARD USB

The Seagate you spec would be a very good choice. In looking at your specs it's clear you'll have a great system for FS (and if it doesn't work right feel free to send it to me for testing. Should take no more than six months or so. :-) ).You wrote: "I have no idea how to partition a hard drive so my second thought was to just add a second HD and put all hte files there."Partitioning a hard drive is very easy. Most HD manufacturers have utilities to do this. Most are very easy to use. They will partition and format for you. Additionally, WinXp will make the option available to you during it's install.Good luck with you new baby,

Hi GregThanks for the info. It's funny you mention it, but on my nForce2 board, it's the Maxtors causing trouble, one won't be recognized on nr.1 of the primary IDE-channel (only on nr.2). The other sometimes comes with funny Bios-readings. My best and most reliable performers are the WDs. Again thanks Jaap

Just a little note on HDs from someone who is invloved with over 400 PCs.Those with technical knowledge or curiosity may remeber a couple of years ago there were reports of Fuji HDs failing. This tunred into a major scandal and we are still getting 2-3 year old Fuji HDs failing.However about 6 months ago we started seeing Maxtor HDs having the same problem but not yet in the same numbers.My conclusion to your last post Jaap is that it probably isn't your mo/bo that's taking out the HDs, just that you have got some bad Maxtors.I am not sure if the cause of the Maxtor failures is the same as the Fuji failures but I suspect they are and it is heat related.If those drives are still readable I would backup any files off them pronto.Just to safeguard myself, and Avsim, these are my own findings with the Matrox drives and I have not seen anything published to indicate there is a major problem unlike the Fuji failures which was quite widely published.

Thanks for that vulcanI think, I've identified the culprit. Guess what? Right, the ATA cabel. I'd been switching drives quite often in the last days, and it must have broken. The problem solved. I'm also cautious about max*** a little. These were the drives, which were causing most of the problems, apart from 120 GB WDs, acc to nForce-forums. Or maybe this is simply because many folks use them? Take careJaap

Interesting, I had a Maxtor 80GB go about a year ago.

I suggest You just stick with a "generic" 7200rpm SATA drive. More Space for the buck, but I do not want to insult anyone, the raptors are fine. Most failed hard disks I've seen in the last years were piping hot - what indicates a problem. I have more than one machine with more than 1 HDD each. I installed a full-size (silent) 8cm fan in front of (each set of) them blowing a good measure of air better than any special HD fan will do. Drives feel cool to the touch this way.With this setup, I have not had one HDD failure in more than 3 years, Maxtor, IBM, Samsung drives.Torsten

"...but I do not want to insult anyone, the raptors are fine."No offense taken here. And I hope the Raptors are indeed fine. I don't look forward to dealing with any problems. I agree with your point about heat. It just kills hard drives. I have one of those special hard drive coolers mounted to the bottom of mine. And it's augmented by twin 4cm fans that takes the place of a drive bay front. Had the same config on my Maxtor (that I thought was dying, but now I'm not so sure).Regards,