2 WD Caviar Blue in RAID 0 or 1 WD VelociRaptor?

[R2-D2]

[FONT=&quot]I would appreciate your advice on the following.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I consider upgrading my internal hard drive. The most important aspect for me is performance. In terms of capacity, I’m quite happy with what I currently have (500 GB) as I can’t fill even half of it. I’d prefer to keep costs to a minimum so I don’t currently consider SSD drives. First, a little more information on my system:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Motherboard ASUS P7P55D PRO with SATA 3 Gb/s ports[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Processor Intel Core i7-860 (8M Cache, 2.80 GHz)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Memory Corsair Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 8GB in dual channel configuration[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Hard drive Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS (SATA 3Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 500 GB, 16 MB cache)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Which of these two options would give me more performance boost?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1) [/FONT][FONT=&quot]1) 2 WD Caviar Blue drives in RAID 0.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The problem with this setup is that WD5000AAKS is no longer available in the local market. Currently the closest match to it is WD5000AAKX that has data transfer rate of 6 Gb/s. Should the drives in RAID 0 be identical? Will I have any problems with pairing these two together?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2) [/FONT][FONT=&quot]2) 1 WD VelociRaptor WD5000HHTZ (SATA 6Gb/s, 10000 RPM, 500 GB, 64 MB cache).[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Will the first option give me better throughput and thus more performance boost considering that SATA ports of my motherboard have only 3 Gb/s transfer rate?[/FONT]

 

[MadMarc]

For the price of the VelociRaptor you can get a nice 120-240gb ssd as a bootdrive and for the most important programms, keep your current hd for music, movies...

 

[jamesriley94]

Get a 128gb Crucial M4 SSD and keep your current 500gb HDD.

Install windows and programs and games on the SSD and data on the HDD.

That should be cheaper than both of the 2 options you've suggested, and perform a lot better

 

[R2-D2]

[FONT=&quot]One of[/FONT][FONT=&quot] the reasons I need that boost in performance is that my current HDD is quite slow for gaming. And as far as I understand, games should stay in the main drive, in boot drive in other words. Or am I missing something? If I'm right, then 120 GB and even 240 GB is too tight. Besides, as far as I can see, for now SSDs are slightly less reliable. And if HD fails it usually happens more gracefully meaning there is a higher chance of recovering the data. As SSD is relatively new technology, I would give it more time to mature before I could trust it more than good old HDD.[/FONT]

 

[jamesriley94]

Crucial M4s and Samsung 830s are perfectly reliable, dont worry about that.

Regarding games on the main drive - that's rubbish. As long as they arent on an external drive or anything.
Space wise, I can fit the OS on my 128gb M4, plus 7 games, and still have around 20gb spare. After that, just put things on the HDD - But I guarantee you'll be happy with an SSD

 

[R2-D2]

Well, maybe you'll make me change my mind after all . Let's just see what others have to say about that.

 

[yassarikhan786]

I have to agree with James

 

[Josh Weston]

SSDs ftw, yo.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Go SSD!