Transfer Hard Drive

[Bubblehead]

Got my new upgraded PC ready. Can I just remove the SATA hard drive containing my FlightSim games from my old PC and connect it to to the new one?  

Bubblehead

[G-Fire25]

You should be able to, if it fits...

[garymbuska]

You should be able to put the drive in your new system but your new system will not know FSX is there as there are no registry entries.
 Any time you install a program it makes registry entries as to where the program resides and what it needs to run it. SO if the drive was your D drive on the old system and becomes the E drive on your new system you will get a ton of errors as it will look for everything on the D drive and not find anything. 8-)
 

[Bubblehead]

Got the Picture. It's not worth the hassle. I'll just get me a new hard drive and load the FSX from the disk. I have all the FSX add-ons (aircraft, gauges, sound, etc.) stored in an external hard drive. I already have a Raptor 74G installed but I only want the OS and a few essential programs in it. All others including the games will go in the second hard drive. What do you think of a 400G SATA Seagate? A WD maybe?

Bubblehead

[Skittles]

...but your new system will not know FSX is there as there are no registry entries.

You know, I've always wondered why M$ never came up with a way to "Scan for existing software"

Morons.

Sorry, did I type that out loud.

[ATI_7500]

What do you think of a 400G SATA Seagate? A WD maybe?

If your motherboard supports it, go for a SATA II disk. It's twice as fast as SATA I.

But I can't comment on the size, since I have trouble even getting my 200GB drive full.

[garymbuska]

...but your new system will not know FSX is there as there are no registry entries.

You know, I've always wondered why M$ never came up with a way to "Scan for existing software"

Morons.

Sorry, did I type that out loud.

I think it would be possable to make a program that would do that but then it would jack up the cost of WINDOWS and someone would have a wooper of a headache ironing out all of the bugs in it.
I would not even want to think about it. Taking a 32 bit program and making it into a 64 bit program the thought alone is to much. 8-)

[Nick N]

Got the Picture. It's not worth the hassle. I'll just get me a new hard drive and load the FSX from the disk.

Bubblehead

With FSX it is more than just a registry entry that will be missing. FSX installs a service and also other files for simconnect outside the FSX folder, and then there is activation so there is no way around the reinstall unless you know how to migrate the right files, registry entries for the file locations, service, etc.. In any case it has to be reactivated no matter what you do so the best bet is a reinstall. You can still migrate any add-ons as needed. Make sure to upgrade or install the .NET Framework to v2.0-3.0 because Microsoft is making use of that now and it will be needed.

Speed of hard drives is not based on SATA1, 2, etc. That specification is designed to indicate the drives rated I/O throughput in megabits (not bytes). 150Mb/s compared to 300Mb/s is only slower if the other specs on the drives in comparison between 150/300 are equal. Faster is based more on the disk rotation speed in relation to the access time specifications with the size of the drive and the amount of data that will be on it presenting a geometric speed factor. In example, A SATA 10k Raptor @ 150GB in storage size that will have 90GB of data or less, will be faster than most if not all 300Mb/s SATA2 units.

A SATA 150 = 150Mb/s divided by 8 (to convert bits to bytes) = 18.75MB/s (megaBytes per second) RATED I/O speed.
A SATA 300 = 300Mb/s divided by 8 (to convert bits to bytes) = 37.5MB/s (megaBytes per second) RATED I/O speed.

Rated is not "true" speed

Ok so you would think 300 is faster... well, it is unless the hard drive is a Raptor or other brand that is designed with the right internal numbers as demonstrated here:

You must find the buffer to disk specification for the drive, something that is not on the label and usually only found at the manufacture.

A Raptor runs about 82MB/s where a typical SATAII 300 runs about or around 60MB/s. You take the buffer to disk speed number and divide it by 2 to get a crude estimate of the drives true internal throughput speed Then subtract 10% for access time loss

SATA 150 typical = 41/2 = 21MB/s - 10% = 18.5MB/s
SATA 150 Raptor = 82/2 = 43MB/s - 10% = 38.3MB/s
SATA 300 typical = 65/2 = 33MB/s - 10% = 29.2MB/s      

[justpassingthrough]

Speed of hard drives is not based on SATA1, 2, etc. That specification is designed to indicate the drives rated I/O throughput in megabits (not bytes). 150Mb/s compared to 300Mb/s is only slower if the other specs on the drives in comparison between 150/300 are equal. Faster is based more on the disk rotation speed in relation to the access time specifications with the size of the drive and the amount of data that will be on it presenting a geometric speed factor. In example, A SATA 10k Raptor @ 150GB in storage size that will have 90GB of data or less, will be faster than most if not all 300Mb/s SATA2 units.

A SATA 150 = 150Mb/s divided by 8 (to convert bits to bytes) = 18.75MB/s (megaBytes per second) RATED I/O speed.
A SATA 300 = 300Mb/s divided by 8 (to convert bits to bytes) = 37.5MB/s (megaBytes per second) RATED I/O speed.

Rated is not "true" speed

Yep, the benchmark programs used to test hard drives are reading the disk buffer, not the real transfer ability of the drive. Thats why those benchmark programs display numbers that appear high, like the disk rating, and they really are not that fast in true file transfers or use.

The only way to check a hard drives real speed and get it somewhat right is to run 2 tests. The first test is to grab a huge single file like a ISO of 500MB and time how long it takes to CUT/PASTE it to another drive of equal speed. The second test is to take a folder with many smaller files which egual about 500MB and CUT/PASTE it to another drive of equal speed.

Two results tell you how fast the drive really is. It is a laymans way of testing speed. A professional uses an I/O monitor program over a period of time to check how the user is running the system.

But the bottom line is, faster rotation - faster buffer - lower access and the drive being much less than 3/4 full = better