I was one of those desktop users who was hypnotized by the Western Digital Raptor 10 000rpm drives and new motherboard's built-in SATA RAID capabilities. I rushed out and bought 2 36G Raptors and promptly set them up in a RAID 0 array. I was impressed at first. But I wondered if the improvement was solely because of the 10 000rpm of the drives and not because of the RAID 0 array.

So, a few weeks ago I changed from RAID 0 (2x36G Raptors + 1 120G and 1 80G ATA100 for storage) to RAID 1 (2x36G Raptors +1 80G and 1 120G ATA 100). I have noticed absolutely no reduction in performance. Windows loads as quickly, as do games. Photoshop, imTOO DVD, etc. all function at the same level. The one difference now is I have backup in RAID 1, and less chance of failure.

I now have my operating systems/programs on the RAID 1 array and all of my data/downloads/temp files etc., on my PATA drives. Feel much more secure and performance has not changed. RAID 0 to me is another example of theory failing in practice, at least for a desktop user. If you want to go the RAID route, go RAID 1, otherwise save your money and buy one fast drive (WD74G Raptor) and forget about RAID.

Some recent articles exploring this:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=2101

http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0

Yep - RAID is one of those things which is pretty pointless unless you have a specific need, and the lower numbers tend to be neither use or ornament. I've never bothered going down the RAID route myself, the only benefit for most home users is the mirroring, as it could provide a decent 'quick' backup and recovery. Now SATA is here, I guess RAID will become a lot easier to implement for critical use (RAID 5's capabilities spring to mind)
RAID 0 can actually prove more a hindrance than a help if you need to recover data from a damaged disk.

I have used a pair of raptors using RAID 1 from the moment I installed the drives. I don't look at it as a method of backup as such, since, a virus, an accidental fdisk, etc, etc, will wipe or corrupt the data on both the mirrored drives. I have even wiped the partition tables accidentally (momentary panic) but had a backup MBR to restore the situation. It does howvever give one the security of knowing that one disk can physically fail and you have no down time while you replace the bad drive.

Also use a RAID0 on a Promise RAID controller for IDE. Not for performance at all since there is only one HDD on the cable. It's just a way to attach one additional HDD to my system and it has to be configured as a RAID in order for the BIOS to see it. So yes, you can even have a single striped HDD - ;)