Instant hard drive performance boost

I found this a while back when looking for something entirely unrelated. If, like me, you have Flight Simulator X installed on a USB drive, chances are you’re not getting the best performance. By default, USB devices are optimised for quick removal. For folk like myself who have their USB drive permanently connected, this is not required, so we want to optimise it for best performance.

When I applied this change to my FSX drive, it had a noticeable positive impact on performance. To optimise your USB drive for performance, do the following:

1. Open Windows Explorer (use the Windows key + E)
2. Right-click your USB drive and select Properties
3. Select the Hardware tab along the top of the window
4. Select your USB drive from the list and click Properties
5. Select the Policies tab along the top
6. Select “Optimize for performance” and click Okay

You’ll most likely be told to restart your computer. Do so and you’re all set.

Important note: as your drive is no longer optimised for quick removal, if you do want to remove it, you MUST do so by using the “Safely remove” option from your status bar, otherwise you risk data loss.

• Removal of Translator on FlightSimX
• FSX tweaks
• Captain Sim 757 Service Pack 4.1 released
• Optimise your PC for flight simming
• FlightSimX weekly summary for week ending 19th October, 2007