New computer decisions

[bdaboy]

Hey, I am going to be buying a new computer soon and I was wandering if it is worth paying extra for the RAID 0 USING 2X120GB HARD DRIVES or am I just better off getting one 250gig drive it's about an extra $150 will it be worth it? I do a fair bit of video work but nothing exceptional.

Thanks.

[redwudz]

Personally, I would opt for the RAID MB. Even if you don't use it as RAID, it can be used for additional IDE drives for future options. In most cases, the newer 7200 IDE drives are plenty fast for most any application, including video. I use RAID on my system, but don't often take advantage of it for speed. However, (2) 120G drives are a good setup for video (With a seperate boot drive). RAID 0 has one problem in that if either drive fails, all the data is lost. There are other RAID options, but they are slower. Think of it as 4 more IDE channels that are available. 2x120 VS 1X250, the 2x120 wins out with more options and maybe more reliability. If I were going for a video encoding system, I would mainly concentrate on a fast CPU and fast memory, 512MBDDR at least. And of course a good power supply and case.