Confused again - seems to be a common state lately. :)Will be putting together a system using the NVidia 680i chipset. System has Nvidia buiilt in RAID controller. Documents say that " to install XP on a RAID system you need to create a RAID driver disk"ok, except that my configuration will be:1 - SATA drive w/3 partitions for XP/Vista(maybe)/Programs2 - SATA drives in RAID 0 for FSX and other gaming items1 - SATA drive for backupSince the OS is NOT on a RAID volume, do I need to load the RAID driver disk when installing XP?Thanx,VicVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/

I don't think you have to, since the main thing is that the Win XP install CD needs to be able to find the "system" drive in order to install the boot loader and create the boot drive. since that is simply a SATA that should work. the only thing I can think of is if setting up the RAID in the BIOS first before installing XP might cause a problem. But if the XP installer sees the drive you want to install to, then I guess you're OK. If not just have the nvatabus and nvraid drivers ready for F6 on a reinstall.I had a lot of hassle trying to get various beta versions of Vista installed on RAID. It pretty much convinced me that RAID wasn't worth the aggravation. (Though once I got the install issues sorted, haven't had any problem with actually running the array.) Don't know about FSX, but other testing I've seen suggests not much benefit from RAID unless you have a heavy write environment.scott s..

Thanx, that's what I thought. Actually, if the first try doesn't work it will be no big deal to start over.As far as RAID & FSX goes - from what Ive been reading in the various forums(fora?) a RAID 0 volume will give you faster read time and since FSX reads LOTS of little files there should be some improvement.My guess is that it won't produce a *noticeable* difference but I've been wrong before.VicVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/

When you get it going, check it with benchmarker. Maybe they fixed it, but Raid 0 in the 680is used to be totally broke: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/03/the...tle/page11.htmlWD now has a single 7200 RPM-er that will sustain 95MB/s xfer rates. That's within a whisker of what Tom's found 4 raptors in raid 0 could do on that 680i.It wasn't the raptors. The SATA II buss was broken.Single 7200 RPM-ers are really closing in on even the raptors these days. They now have a 25% xfer rate advantage, but still lag by 25% in access times. Raptors still (maybe) have a minuscule advantage in a small file environments, but Raids with these new speedy 7200s are shrinking the gap. Raid on!