250GB 2.5" Western Digital In RAID-0

Im Gonna Ask Again! Previous Subject; http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] 0#t1899405

AGAIN!, First Off My Current Configuration Is 1x 120GB 3.5" WD For My OS And Apps, 2x 80GB (Raid-0) 3.5" First-Gen Raptors (8MB Cache 1.5G) For My Games And A 500GB WD Green Audio/Video/Backup And VBox Virtual Disks Drive. I Have One 250GB WD 2.5" Drive And Have One More Coming, Both Are 7200RPM. I Am Considering Running Them In The Following Configuration; (Of-Course Keeping My 500GB In-Tact)

One 80GB Raptor - OS And Apps And The 2x 250GBs In RAID-0 For Games And VBox HDDs And The 500GB As Stated Above.

My Question Is Would The 2x 250s Be Faster Overall Than My Two First-Gen Rapors In The RAID?

If Not Then One Of The 250s Will Be Sold, A Third Raptor Will Be Added For A Triple RAID-0 And The Other 250 Will Become The OS/Apps And Vbox Virtual Disk Drive.

Please Gimme A Frakkin Answer!

Well your Raptors are going to be faster, with the higher RPMs gets you quicker seek times. Now read/write performance on some of the newer large drives with high density platters can beat these raptors but i do not think that your 250's will be able to do so. I had a threesome of the 74gb first gen raptors and now have a pair of the 300gb velociraptors that i use for my game data and most data. Then i have a larger 2TB drive for torrent downloads and DVD rips/storage until i send the data to my HTPC.

So unless you need to have the storage, i think the performance will be much better, especially if your dealing with 2.5" drives. Now the Triple RAID-0, I would recommend that you keep/use one of those 250gb drives as a hot spare in the event one of those drives fail.

*HINT* WD has a very good RMA, especially with these drives. You dont need a receipt to try, just the serial number unless its beyond the 3 or 5 years of the mfg date, but if its still within the warranty based on purchase date, you do need the receipt. Anyway, when it was time for me to get rid of my raptors, i RMA'd 2 of them when one died and then sold the 2 of them brand new (the 3rd drive was purchased previously and out of warranty) If you can, see if you can get yourself 1 or 2 new raptors out of it!