Simviation Forum - Hard Drive

Jan 9^th, 2008 at 9:20am

flyboy4992 Offline
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Well i need a Hard drive now for my comp i am building for FSX now....whats a good harddrive for 75-100 USD?

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Reply #1 - Jan 9^th, 2008 at 9:52am

NickN Offline
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FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

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For FSX you better be willing to spend more than that

At the same time you did not say if the system supports SATAII, SATAIII or just IDE

For a single drive FSX separate install (FSX on its own drive and the OS and other software on its own) in SATA either a Western Digital Raptor 150GB or if you have a SATA 300 port a good name brand 250GB or larger SATA 300 drive.

The Rator will run you about 170-200. Any decent SATA 300 in that size is going to be over 100

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Reply #2 - Jan 10^th, 2008 at 12:46am

simonmd Offline
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Hard Drive prices have tumbled over the past couple of years. I got a new SATA 250gb HD in the UK from a high street shop for £45. That's less than US$90. I'm sure you'll get one similar over there within your budget.

&&This months's screenshot contest entry> http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1197692798

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Reply #3 - Jan 10^th, 2008 at 5:53am

Keep It Simple Offline
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Not too long ago, I got a 250 gig WD SATA2(3gb/s) HDD for my dual boot sys for about $70 US
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

I do have a 150 gig Raptor that I use for FSX and other data like MP3s etc.

The 250 gig is plenty fast enough and for all pratical purposes, it's about as fast as the Raptor. I hightly recomend it.

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Reply #4 - Jan 10^th, 2008 at 8:48am

beaky Offline
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So far no problems at all with any of my WD drives... good products, and competitively priced.

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Reply #5 - Jan 10^th, 2008 at 8:56am

flyboy4992 Offline
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how do i find out if my comp can support the sata drives???

My Specs:

Intel P35 ATX Motherboard
Corsair DDR2 2GB RAM
Intel core duo E6550 2.33GHZ proccessor
nVidia GeForce 8600GT 512MB 128-Bit PCI-e
Windows XP SP2
17" monitor

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Reply #6 - Jan 10^th, 2008 at 11:46am

NickN Offline
Colonel
FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

Keep It Simple wrote on Jan 10^th, 2008 at 5:53am:

Not too long ago, I got a 250 gig WD SATA2(3gb/s) HDD for my dual boot sys for about $70 US
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

I do have a 150 gig Raptor that I use for FSX and other data like MP3s etc.

The 250 gig is plenty fast enough and for all pratical purposes, it's about as fast as the Raptor. I hightly recomend it.

not true

The buffer to disk spec and rotation/access spec of the raptor make it better suited for FSX and high demand file calls

Place it on the right controller with the right driver and you can access abilities the typical WD drive will not allow.

The larger platter of the WD250 and the SATA300 interface make it look faster/close in benchmarks and if the drive is fairly empty and properly defraged it can give the illusion of being just as fast but it isnt and by real world use it will not access files as fast as the raptor, ever.

There are newer drives coming out which are just about as fast as the raptor, and, part of that is because of the larger platter but the SATA300 spec over the SATAII spec of the Raptor does not make such drives faster, not by a long shot.

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Reply #7 - Jan 10^th, 2008 at 11:51am

NickN Offline
Colonel
FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

flyboy4992 wrote on Jan 10^th, 2008 at 8:56am:

how do i find out if my comp can support the sata drives???

My Specs:

Intel P35 ATX Motherboard
Corsair DDR2 2GB RAM
Intel core duo E6550 2.33GHZ proccessor
nVidia GeForce 8600GT 512MB 128-Bit PCI-e
Windows XP SP2
17" monitor

If its a P35 motherboard more than likely it has SATA ports on it

Did it come with a manual? It will say what type of drive interface is on the board along with anything else you may wish to know about the board. You can also go to the Windows hardware device manager and expand the DISK DRIVES section. Look at the properties for the drives installed. It should display a model number and you can run that number to find out what type of drives you are using right now.

There are also software solutions on the net for getting a detailed list of hardware in a system and reporting all the info about them.

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Reply #8 - Jan 10^th, 2008 at 12:45pm

Keep It Simple Offline
Colonel
USA

Posts: 495

NickN wrote on Jan 10^th, 2008 at 11:46am:

Keep It Simple wrote on Jan 10^th, 2008 at 5:53am:

Not too long ago, I got a 250 gig WD SATA2(3gb/s) HDD for my dual boot sys for about $70 US
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

I do have a 150 gig Raptor that I use for FSX and other data like MP3s etc.

The 250 gig is plenty fast enough and for all pratical purposes, it's about as fast as the Raptor. I hightly recomend it.

not true

The buffer to disk spec and rotation/access spec of the raptor make it better suited for FSX and high demand file calls

Place it on the right controller with the right driver and you can access abilities the typical WD drive will not allow.

The larger platter of the WD250 and the SATA300 interface make it look faster/close in benchmarks and if the drive is fairly empty and properly defraged it can give the illusion of being just as fast but it isnt and by real world use it will not access files as fast as the raptor, ever.

There are newer drives coming out which are just about as fast as the raptor, and, part of that is because of the larger platter but the SATA300 spec over the SATAII spec of the Raptor does not make such drives faster, not by a long shot.

Well, of course the Raptor is faster in benchmarks and in reality.
However, the fact is, in day to day operations, the 250 gig seems just about as fast as my Raptors. which I have extensive experience with in a few sys.

"The larger platter of the WD250 and the SATA300 interface make it look faster/close in benchmarks and if the drive is fairly empty and properly defraged it can give the illusion of being just as fast"

This is exactly what I ment.

In addition, I always keep my drives defraged and leave plenty of free space.

If someone does not want the expence of a raptor, it is a worthy alternative IMO

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