Simviation Forum - WD Velociraptor HD worth it?

Jul 25^th, 2010 at 3:08pm

Sean Grenyer Offline
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Kent, UK.

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Posts: 133

Hey

NickN says one of the best upgrades for FSX you can get is a Western Digital Velocirator Hard Drive. They're about £160 here in the UK.

It would be a FSX-only HD so doesn't matter if it's not got that big a capacity.

Any thoughts / experiences?

Sean

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Reply #1 - Jul 26^th, 2010 at 12:53pm

idahosurge Offline
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I Fly Sim!
Anna, Texas, USA

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Posts: 687

I have a 300GB for FSX and a 600GB for my FSX photo scenery. FSX runs great. I can not tell you have much of an improvement it will be.

All that I can say is that I had my photo scenery on a 500GB partition of a 750GB Seagate 7,200 RPM drive with a 32MB cache. After I moved my photo scenery to the 600GB VR my frame rates over NYC did increase at least 2 FPS and sometimes by 3, maybe more. My photo scenery does include MegaSceneryEarth for Long Island, including all of NYC and all of NJ.

Now was the price for the 600GB worth 2FPS, probably not, but I moved it since I was running out of room. Now I have plenty of room on the the 500GB partition and the 600GB VR.

Asus R3E_i7 980X @ 4.44GHz_TR Silver Arrow_Mushkin Redline 6GB 1,644MHz @ 6-7-6-18_Zotac AMP GTX 480_OS - Windows 7 Ult 64b_OS SSD - Crucial C300 128GB_FSX HD - WD VR 600GB*2 w/3ware 9750-4i 6Gb/s Controller_Corsair AX850_CM HAF-X_FSX Gold, UTX, GEX, FSG, ST, MSX, MSE, FTX, FEX, FSWC, MTX, STB, AS F16, PMDG MD11, CS MD80 Pro, FSD P38, VRS FA18E

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Reply #2 - Jul 26^th, 2010 at 4:06pm

idahosurge Offline
Colonel
I Fly Sim!
Anna, Texas, USA

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Posts: 687

I just thought that I would mention that the real benefit to putting FSX on a VR is that FSX is the only thing on the HD.

Since FSX is on the outer edge of the platter it takes less time to read data and transfer it to the CPU. The more you put on it the longer it takes to read the data on the inside of the platter and that is why Nick recommends that you do not have a HD more that 50% full. Keep in mind that the 50% figure is for optimum performance, not everyone can have a HD that is only 50% full.

Since the VR spins at 10,000 RPM this further reduces the time it takes to read vs. a HD that spins at 7,200 RPM.

Asus R3E_i7 980X @ 4.44GHz_TR Silver Arrow_Mushkin Redline 6GB 1,644MHz @ 6-7-6-18_Zotac AMP GTX 480_OS - Windows 7 Ult 64b_OS SSD - Crucial C300 128GB_FSX HD - WD VR 600GB*2 w/3ware 9750-4i 6Gb/s Controller_Corsair AX850_CM HAF-X_FSX Gold, UTX, GEX, FSG, ST, MSX, MSE, FTX, FEX, FSWC, MTX, STB, AS F16, PMDG MD11, CS MD80 Pro, FSD P38, VRS FA18E

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Reply #3 - Jul 26^th, 2010 at 7:58pm

patchz Offline
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What, me worry?
IN THE FUNNY PAPERS

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I don't know anything about the Velociraptor, but I've got FSX on a 1TB SATA-II 3Gb/s 7200rpm 32MB Cache HDD (D:/) and my OS etc on a 500GB SATA-II 3Gb/s 7200rpm 16MB Cache HDD (C:/). D:/ has 774GB free space and C:/ has 331GB free space, way less than 50% on both. I use Ultimate Defrag to keep the good stuff near the edge and though not as fast as 10,000rpm they work good for me.

If God intended aircraft engines to have horizontally opposed engines, Pratt and Whitney would have made them that way.

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