At present I use a Asus A8V Deluxe Socket 930 that only supports SATAI 150 Gb/s. I now have one WD Raptor 150 Gb 10000 rpm. If I would get one more Raptor 150 Gb and set up a raid 0 array I would get these benefits1) A faster drive because of raid2) A bigger drive 300 Gb instead of 150 Gb. That would mean I could to greater extent place stuff at the outer tracks150 Gb is somewhat little. I now have it filled about 60%. So how much speed could be gained by the above factors ?

You will see little to no benefit by striping two Raptors without replacing your disk controller first. Hardware disk controllers which utilize an interface that provides enough bandwidth to enable higher disk performance are extremely expensive. I really wouldn't recommend it for older Raptors with the SATA1.5G interface (your disk).

Software RAID is useless in FS. If you spend $300 for a decent controller and set it up properly you will gert a benefit but with onboard RAID - don't waste your time.Q9650 E0 CPU 3.0 o/c 4.06Asus Rampage Extreme X48 4G XP2-18200 DDR3 1800FSB Mushkin 996587 RAM 8-8-8-24-1T1-74G Raptor - XP System1-74G Raptor - Data1-320G 7200 - Programs 1-150G Raptor - FSX 1-500G 7200 HD for backup SATA DVD burner Evga 8800GTS 640 PCIx XG 174.74 702/1620/792Kandalf LCS case w/ built in liquid cooling 850W Thermaltake power supplyHannsG 28" 1920x1200Viewsonic 22" 1680x1050http://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-supporter-sigbanner.jpg

>At present I use a Asus A8V Deluxe Socket 930 that only>supports SATAI 150 Gb/s. I now have one WD Raptor 150 Gb 10000>rpm. If I would get one more Raptor 150 Gb and set up a raid 0>array I would get these benefits>>1) A faster drive because of raid>2) A bigger drive 300 Gb instead of 150 Gb. That would mean I >> could to greater extent place stuff at the outer tracks>>150 Gb is somewhat little. I now have it filled about 60%. So>how much speed could be gained by the above factors ?In your case and if this is for FSX, forget RAID especially motherboard RAIDFor FS9 motherboard RAID can help assuming you can set to a 128KB STRIPE when the array is built however what it will provide will be a bit limited. That is an old motherboard and as Vic pointed out the software RAID system is not going to be a huge advantage for FS9. but do note than in FSX its completely WORTHLESS and will make performance WORSE than running a single drive. You need a hardware controller card for FSX RAID and you need to be running a 256K STRIPE array

>>At present I use a Asus A8V Deluxe Socket 930 that only>>supports SATAI 150 Gb/s. I now have one WD Raptor 150 Gb>10000>>rpm. If I would get one more Raptor 150 Gb and set up a raid>0>>array I would get these benefits>>>>1) A faster drive because of raid>>2) A bigger drive 300 Gb instead of 150 Gb. That would mean I>>>>> could to greater extent place stuff at the outer tracks>>>>150 Gb is somewhat little. I now have it filled about 60%.>So>>how much speed could be gained by the above factors ?>>>>In your case and if this is for FSX, forget RAID especially>motherboard RAID>>>For FS9 motherboard RAID can help assuming you can set to a>128KB STRIPE when the array is built however what it will>provide will be a bit limited. That is an old motherboard and>as Vic pointed out the software RAID system is not going to be>a huge advantage for FS9. >>but do note than in FSX its completely WORTHLESS and will make>performance WORSE than running a single drive. You need a>hardware controller card for FSX RAID and you need to be>running a 256K STRIPE array>>How can it be different in FSX compared to FS9?

you would have to understand how RAID worksI will give you a brief but I dont have time to dive into the specificsto obtain the perf from RAID the STRIP size of the array is critical. That size the user selects when creating the array is based on 2 things1. Average file sizes you will be calling2. The type of access (sequential, random or a mix of both)With FSX the average file size and the file system calls dictate a 256K STRIPE must be used -at minimum- and you will be hard pressed to find a motherboard that has 256K available for array buildinganother whammy is the RAID on the motherboardMotherboard RAID is software RAID and therefore it pounds the heck out of the CPU for each drive being accessed in RAID so not only are you running a smaller STRIPE you are effectively removing 10+% of the CPU from the system... FSX needs every CPU cycle it can get.Hardware RAID does not access the CPU. You would not see any more CPU loss than 2% which is actually less than many single drives on SATA ports. Hardware RAID also has on-card memory which assists by loading/offloading the buffer at its full speed and feeding the buss as fast as it can accept the dataFS9 is not as CPU intense and because of the smaller average file size a smaller STRIPE can be used. Therefore using RAID0 for FS9 off the motherboard ports can help especially with Raptors but on your rig you would find FSX would run worse and stutter like drunk on Saturday night running your motherboard RAID

>to obtain the perf from RAID the STRIP size of the array is>critical. That size the user selects when creating the array>is based on 2 things>My mobo manual mention something called Block Size. Is that the same as Strip size. Otherwise the option I have to choose from are4K , 8K , 16K , 32K , 64K

>>to obtain the perf from RAID the STRIP size of the array is>>critical. That size the user selects when creating the array>>is based on 2 things>>>>My mobo manual mention something called Block Size. Is that>the same as Strip size. Otherwise the option I have to choose>from are>4K , 8K , 16K , 32K , 64K>correct.. STRIPE or BLOCK is the same thing64K is small but ok with FS9. 128K would be better. It really depends on the installed addons used with FS9. With the default files 64 is sufficient64K with FSX is complete suicide and even a hardware RAID card would run FSX a bit doggy at that BLOCK size