Will FS2004 run off of an external HDD?

[ShadowMystDK]

Just a quick question for some of y'all who are a bit more versed in the hardware stuff than myself..........

I am currently running FS2004 off of my laptop, AMD Athalon 2GHz w/2GB RAM and a 40GB HDD (graphics card is built into motherboard), and am finding that I am running out of HDD space (currently at 3GB free - C and D drives combined). I was wondering if FS2004 would run decently off of a USB 2.0 external HDD. I was looking at a 320GB unit, which is reasonably priced and would offer more than ample storage for my FS stuff. Currently, between Windows and FS2004 (6.9GB alone), 2/3rds of my available HDD space (17GB) on the C: drive is taken, with small stuff taking up the rest, pretty much to the point it takes hours to run a defrag.
Also, if I did this, would the performance gains of freeing up that HDD space would be nullified by the external drive's slower access time?

Thanks,
ShadowMystDK

[Daniel]

Don't think it does cause normally you have the FS files under progam files.
You could put all your other files on the external hardrive that don't need to be under program files.

Otherwise you could put all the aircraft you don't require for a bit on the hard drive then tranfer them over once you need them.
Good luck

[Anthony]

I have heard various stories about this. (airliners.net thread, read down a bit)
One guy said you would be guaranteed to get a slideshow while another said his ran perfectly.
Someone said it ran okay but performance was slightly degraded. This is probably the most realistic.

You will need a fast drive, 7200RPM or 10000RPM maybe, and a fast connection - USB 2.0 or Firewire.
Apparently it also depends on how good your system is although that wasn't elaborated on so i have no idea if your specs cut it. They probably do.
I personally wouldn't do it and I wouldn't know how to do it.

I have also heard of people putting texture files on externals.

[ZK-LGD]

Hi Shadow,

Has been working a treat on my external 150GB Seagate for over a year now.

[HardCorePawn]

If your question is "Will it run?", the answer is Yes

If your question is "Will it run well?", the answer is probably No...

Although, given you are on a laptop with integrated graphics, you're probably not getting very good performance now anyway, so throwing another bottleneck into the mix probably is not going to make much difference to you.

QUOTE (Daniel @ Aug 6 2008, 07:20 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't think it does cause normally you have the FS files under progam files.

You can install FS anywhere you like... when you run the installer you just change the directory...

[Daniel]

QUOTE

You can install FS anywhere you like... when you run the installer you just change the directory...[/quote]

Interesting Didn't know that.
Might have to pick one up so I can get more space for FS files
Thanks for the info.