Simviation Forum - 2nd Harddrive ?

Nov 26^th, 2005 at 10:55am

caveman16 Offline
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Good morning Guys and Ladies, Been reading the forum since early and a question came up that may be of value. Can't help but notice that many of our problems are the LACK OF : #1, PC speed #2, RAM And I'm sure there's many others . However, I'll address just these two. Is there such a "thing" as a second hard drive ? And if so, could it be connected to the PC via some plug-in ? You know - - - - like sitting on the desk NEXT to the PC / not in it ? Wouldn't "it" take the load off the main PC and use it to just run the "Sim" ? Then the main PC would have all it needed to operate w/o sharing anything with the "Sim" including the scanner used to read/write to the HARD DRIVES ! ! ??? ??? If it's possible or if they exist and /or it could be connected - - - what impact would it have on the beads- - - oops - - - wallet? I sorta keep drifting back in that dark cave

Anyway- - it was just a thought. Any input ? caveman

My PC's Specks: Case: Thermaltake v7000c/ 5 very quiet case fans. Motherboard: AMD/ASUS-A8N32-Sli Deluxe Socket 939 Processor: AMD Athion 64x2 4400+/Socket939 Dual Core. Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition w/sp2 Full version. RAM: Corsair XMS 2 GB [2x1 GB] Twin 2048-3200c 2pt. Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE/sata interface 3.0 GB/ 250 GB/ 7200 rpm/8MB cache. DVD Burner: Has everything, even fixes my coffee. Graphics Card: eVGA/DX-9/ GF 7900GT/Memory 256MB/ 256-P2-N563-AX.Sli ready. Power Supply: Hiper Modular Type-R/ Continuous 580w Output/Peak load 630w/ Sli ready. Monitor: Phillips 19" LCD 1280x1024 native/8ms Response/Dot pitch 0.294mm. Ultimate Defrag & System Booster 2. Thanks to Congo & ctjoyce for helping me

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Reply #1 - Nov 26^th, 2005 at 1:50pm

Apex Offline
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You name it, it's out there somewhere. I have an external drive, 80Gigs, $160, less gigs, less money. I run various programs on the ext drive, incl FS2004, to save space on my PC drive. I don't recall my HD specs, but I do not believe there is any performance enhancement, it's mainly a convenience item and doesn't take the load off of the PC. It's connected to the main via a plug-in cable, no mess, no fuss installation, sitting on the desk next to the PC and is controlled by the PC. Look at typical computer-sell sites for harddrives and you'll quickly become educated.

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Reply #2 - Nov 26^th, 2005 at 5:29pm

elite marksman Offline
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I have a 7200RPM 40GB hd that came with the computer, and a 120Gb 7200RPM one that I bought about a year ago for $50 on sale. There isnt any performance enhancement, simply the fact that you can have more programs.

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Reply #3 - Nov 26^th, 2005 at 6:40pm

caveman16 Offline
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Hey Guys, - - - Thanks for the input. Are there others with some thoughts about the 2nd drive? Perhaps to increase the speed /RAM ? Appreciate the input . caveman

My PC's Specks: Case: Thermaltake v7000c/ 5 very quiet case fans. Motherboard: AMD/ASUS-A8N32-Sli Deluxe Socket 939 Processor: AMD Athion 64x2 4400+/Socket939 Dual Core. Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition w/sp2 Full version. RAM: Corsair XMS 2 GB [2x1 GB] Twin 2048-3200c 2pt. Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE/sata interface 3.0 GB/ 250 GB/ 7200 rpm/8MB cache. DVD Burner: Has everything, even fixes my coffee. Graphics Card: eVGA/DX-9/ GF 7900GT/Memory 256MB/ 256-P2-N563-AX.Sli ready. Power Supply: Hiper Modular Type-R/ Continuous 580w Output/Peak load 630w/ Sli ready. Monitor: Phillips 19" LCD 1280x1024 native/8ms Response/Dot pitch 0.294mm. Ultimate Defrag & System Booster 2. Thanks to Congo & ctjoyce for helping me

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Reply #4 - Nov 26^th, 2005 at 9:06pm

elite marksman Offline
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RAM is the cheapest, easiest, and most effective way to increase performance. Upgrade to 1GB or greater and you'll never know how you managed without it.

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Reply #5 - Nov 27^th, 2005 at 1:57pm

Hagar Offline
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Well, I've certainly learned something from this topic. I'm using an old PC at the moment while my usual one is being fixed. This has a very small HD (6 GB) so there's no room for my sims on it.

I use a remote HD for backup files & storing my photos . Images take up a lot of space & I take a lot of photos. Earlier today I found backed up installations of CFS1, CFS2 & FS2002 on the remote drive & after reading Marksman's comments decided to try them. Much to my surprise they all run perfectly.

This must prove something & changes my opinion on a lot of the advice I've seen over the years regarding performance of the various M$ sims. This is a very low-end machine with WinMe & 128 Mb RAM. It's painfully slow & takes a while to read my photo images from the remote drive BUT the sims seem to run smoothly enough with no problems at all. I wouldn't have expected FS2002 to run at all well even if installed to the main HD. Make of that what you will. I'm still trying to figure it out.

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Reply #6 - Mar 4^th, 2006 at 10:03pm

rootbeer Offline
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So what seems to be being said is that we can connect a second drive in an enclosure via a USB cable and have our sims on that; they will run as if they are on the internal drive? If this works, I will do that over putting the second one inside the machine and fooling with the BIOS to use it.

As you can see below, I have a second drive on a USB pigtail, but it has no games on it-- just data and photos, et cetera.

emachines T6212; AMD Athlon64 3800+ (2.40 GHz; Venice core); Allied AL-B500E 500W power supply; 2048Mb PC3200 DDR400; Westinghouse LCM-22w2 wide-screen LCD monitor; eVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS KO X16 PCIe video card; Logitech Extreme 3D Pro flight controller;&&Cyber Acoustics CA-4100 4-channel digital sound with 5 speakers; 300 Gb external hard drive in an enclosure; Windows XP Home; 3 Mb/s AT&T/Yahoo! DSL service; Microsoft Intellipoint trackball; Supergate EC-2000 multi-media keyboard. Epson CX-7800 Stylus all-in-one printer. Canon PowerShot S3 IS digital camera with 1 Gb SD card.&&Next thing: A CH Products USB 2.0 Flight Yoke (for enhanced realism).

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