I'm getting a new comp and need some advice

[videocheez]

I'm picking up a new comp in a few days and I wanted to get some advice to optimize performance and fucntionality. See specs. below. This will be my first system that has a couple of RAID 0 drives in addtion to a larger storage drives. Should I load apps onto the RAID drives or the big storage drive? Should I do a defrag when I first get it? This will be primarily a gaming box. Should i run the game from the RAID0 drive or from the larger storage drive. Any advice that you guys might have will be well received. Whats the first thing that i should do? What should i not do?

Thanks in advance,

VC

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor E6600

OS
genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition

System Board
Intel® D975XBX

System Memory
2GB (2- 1024MB) DDR2/800 DIMMS

Hard Drive
250GB 7200RPM Ultra ATA Samsung

Hard Drive
148GB RAID 0 - (2 x 74GB SATA HDDs) 10,000 RPM WD

DVD-ROM Drive
16x DVD-ROM Drive

DVD ±R/±RW Drive
16x Dual Layer DVD±R/±RW Drive with LightScribe

Video
ATI Radeon X1900 XTX - 512MB PCI Express

Sound
Integrated 8 Channel HD Audio CODEC Sigmatel 9221

LAN
Intel® Integrated Gigabit Ethernet

Keyboard
Microsoft® PS/2 Keyboard

Mouse
Microsoft® Wireless Laser Mouse 6000

Warranty
1 Year Limited On Site Warranty

Firewire
TI TSB43AB23 IEEE Firewire 1394 Controller

Memory Card Reader
Media Card Reader

[ranchhand]

RAID 0 is designed for speed only, that is why it is popular with gamers. There is no data redundancy on the setup stripes so be sure to do regular backups of all your data. Install your games that you like on the RAID arrays because you want super-fast access to the data when blasting enemies to smithereens. There is no point doing a defrag if you haven't used the disks. Defragging is useful only after you have used the computer for several months and loaded/unloaded various programs and data, so that you re-group the data in efficient sectors.

[normcar]

Raid 0 will lose all data if one drive in the raid goes bad, since Raid 0 acts like a single drive. Therefore, backing up the data is very important. Data on Raid 0 will be many times more likely to be lost due to a bad disk, than single disk, or other Raid types.

[ranchhand]

Hey Normcar, I really like your signature - mind if I copy it?
..Bob / Ranchhand

[normcar]

Hey Normcar, I really like your signature - mind if I copy it?
..Bob / Ranchhand

Sure, just don't complain to me, if you drown.