single Barracuda 7200.9 vs RAID 7200.7

[sirdistik]

Hi,

I just wanted everyone's opinion on which setup would be best..

A single 80GB 7200.9 setup or a 2x 160GB Striped RAID 7200.7 configuration? Windows will be installed on the setup.

Thanks in Advance!!

 

[mpjesse]

Depends on what you're doing. RAID 0 is great if you're a very heavy disk user. Take me for example:

I'm usually downloading torrents at 800KB/s, watching a movie, and maybe unrar'ing a tv show all at the same time. With RAID 0 is pretty seamless. Games also load a little bit faster with RAID 0.

However, Windows or programs don't typically launch any faster. Again, it depends on disk usage at the time of program launch.