I am buying a 200 GB External USB so that I can put only sim files on it and connect it to my new laptop when I want to. I will have a flat screen to hook up to it as well. Have to sell the desktop. Can anyone tell me if the fps will suffer as the USB will not be accessed and transmitted as fast as a harddrive connected right the Motherboard. Currently I have two internal drives. C: is ATA and has windows and everything else. D: is a SATA 30 gb drive with only FS on it. Also, what is Firewire? Is it faster than USB? Or is it the same thing?Thanks!Christopher

bump!!

Do you have USB1.1 or 2.0? Because USB 2.0 is pretty fast (480mbit/s=60MB/sec)I think firewire should be about the same (I think it's 400/800 mbit/s). USB1.1 however is only 12mbit/s ... thats 1.5mb/s. I would NOT recommend that for an external HDD.But I suppose you have a recent laptop which has USB2.0.Also, if you get firewire, watch out as there are different connectors - I believe with or without power supply. Your framerates will not suffer in any case, but loading your files from the USB drive might be slower. For flightsimming on a notebook I recommend a Hitachi with 7200 HDD - it's a little loud and gets fairly warm, but it's nearly as fast as a desktop HD.-Daniel

Try to find an external drive that connects to your laptop via a PCMCIA card. I would go in this order: SCSI, Firewire, SATA, IDE. USB only as a last resort.My guess is that your laptop does not have a 1394 hookup (Firewire) or a SATA either. which means that your best bet is a PCMCIA card hookup.

Thank you very much for the responses!