Video editing: RAID 0 vs. 2 drives w/ source-dest different

[jhammer569]

I'm building a new PC, got most components figured out:
CPU: Q9550
GPU: 2 x ATI 3650's (I trade across 3 monitors for a living)
Mem: Corsair DDR2 800 2x2gb
MB: ASUS P5Q-E
HD: 2 x WD640gb

Usage:
Besides trading (no games) & basic web surfing/email and occasional DVD watching, my major use will be home video editing.

Question:
1. Am I better off just having 2 drives. Have the large video (DV) data on one drive, and write the output to the 2nd drive?
OR
2. Have RAID 0 of around 300gb dedicated just to video editing, the rest of the drive space on both drives would be for everything else, not in RAID 0?

Major performance difference one way or the other? If RAID 0 barely gives a performance boost over option 1, then I'd go with option 1 to avoid the risk of RAID 0 data loss across both drives at once.

Tnx!

 

[SomeJoe7777]

If you have an operation that reads from one file or files and writes to another file (like the final rendered output from video editing or compiling a DVD), you are much better off using two separate drives instead of a RAID.

By arranging your files such that the source files are all on one drive that will be dedicated to reading and then saving your target file to a different drive that will be dedicated to writing, both drives can work near their maximum potential.

 

[jhammer569]

Perfect, thanks, that's what I was leaning towards as well from what I've read elsewhere. Helps keep it simple too.

 

[bobbknight]

The fastest would be single platter HD like the 320GB Seagate in to a raid 0 out.