How Much of a difference does a Velociraptor HD make in FSX ?

[crunk747]

I have been considering purchasing a WD Velociraptor HD for some time now, but I am hesitant to buy it if it will only make a marginal increase in performance for FSX. Do any of you guys have them ? If so what are your results ?

Regards,

Dan
 

[Bruce Hamilton]

Being solid state, your sceneries might load faster, but probably not so much that you'd notice.

[Dimon]

Very fast.

Before I switched to WD, my FS2004 was loading 5-7 minutes assuming 11GB of AI-traffic alone. Now it takes about 45 seconds.

Meanwhile, WD has almost zero effect on FPS and smoothness.

[duckbilled]

It will improve load times a lot but not FPS or smoothness. I don't have a massive FSX install (80GB) but FSX loads pretty quick on my VR - 1min, 15 sec.

A SSD would probably be even better but they are really expensive - +$500 for a 256GB one. I would imagine that a SSD may improve smoothness and fps because they don't get fragmented like a VR.

BTW, a VelociRaptor is a high speed hard disk and not a SSD.

If budget isn't a major concern, get a 600GB VR. If you don't mind longer load times and you are watching your pennies, go for a 7200 RPM Drive. If money is no object, go for a 500GB SSD. What ever you do, put FSX on its own drive and not the drive with the OS.

In all, I have three hard drives:
1TB WD Caviar Black - Windows 7 and general stuff
150GB WD Raptor - games, ArcGIS
200GB WD VelociRaptor - FSX