I want to add a second 120gb hard drive to my computer and put it in a RAID 0 array! But is this possible to be done, as the hard drive i have already got is another 120gb but is 60% full, or will this cause errors and other problems? Thanks in advanced for any help! Once a hack always a hack

I would read up on RAID 0 first and find out exactly what it will and wont do. To create a RAID 0 array with your existing system you are going to have to backup or delete ALL you existing data and start again from scratch including installing the Operating System. You cannot create a RAID 0 array with existing data. You would be far better just installing the new drive as a slave and using the extra 160 Gbs that way. The biggest problem with RAID 0 is that there is no redundancy. What that means is that if one disk fails, then you lose everything. There is little hope of data recovery from RAID 0 failure. The only reason for using RAID 0 is that it can speed up reading and writing to hard disk, but the advantages will only be noticeable of you are using huge files like you would in video editing. In most circumstances the improvement in speed is hardly noticeable and is not worth the risks involved. Stuart

It certainly won't improve gaming! I know a lot of gamers are using RAID 0's on the basis of "improved performance" but they're misinformed. A RAID 0 will have no noticable effect on gaming and as StuartS pointed out, will only be noticable in the case of something like video editing. Most games, when running, run up in memory and if you have enough RAM, rarely have to do any disk reads, ergo, no noticable gaming performance improvements. If you're just looking for more storage space, use it as a solo drive. If you're a gamer, take it from somebody who has years of experience with all sorts of RAID's, it's a waste of time and not worth the risks.

I agree with everything StuartS and Curt R said.

You could copy the data you currently have onto disks, setup the array, and copy the data onto the array. You would have, essentially, a 240GB drive that can read almost twice as fast as each of your drives separately. But unless you are pumping data out over a network (several computers are accessing data on your computer) it is not really worth the effort and risk of having raid0. Better to invest in more RAM.

>> a 240GB drive that can read almost twice as fast as each of your drives separately >> Thats in theory. In practise it makes little difference. Just as in theory an ATA133 drive is twice as fast as an ATA66. In practise its about a quarter as fast. Stuart