Looking for some advice on the best way to reconfigure my current system. Here's the current specs. 1 36GB Raptor Hard Drive 1 80GB WD Internal Hard Drive 1 WD 120GB External Hard Drive 1 DVD player 1 DVDRW player 1 CDRW player Now here is my plan. I'm planning on replacing the 80GB and 120GB with two internal 200GB hard drives. I like the raptor but of course it's too small and I'm constantly having to delete programs and files because of space. I want to either keep it as my boot drive or transfer all its information to my 200GB drive and set up a raid configuration. Guess the ultimate question is if I decide to keep the raptor, is it still possible to set up a raid configuration with all three drives combined? I hope this is making some kind of sense. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

There are many type of RAID arrays. You are probably looking for RAID 0. The two internal drives you have aren't suited for RAID 0. The external drive doesn't run off of a hardisk controller, so there is no possibility of using it in any RAID array. You have 5 internal drives. Do you even have connections for 5 drives. The DVDRW will do everything the other two optical drives will do. I suggest you lose either the DVDR or the CDRW. Which one depends on how you use your computer. It is possible to use all the drives in one rig but you need enough controllers or an add in card.

Yeah, going to put in a IDE card. Guess my only problem is wiping off the Raptor hard drive and then doing a new install. Don't have the disks for all the software but I guess I can work around that.

You realize that RAID 0 (striping) is not fault tolerant. If one of the drives goes, or gets corrupted you lose it all. You should probably read up on RAID. I wouldn't recommend RAID 0. You need at least WinXP service pack 1 or better to use disks larger than 137GB. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAID.html

Why do you need three optical drives? All you really need is one, at best, you need two. The CD-RW is the odd man out....

I know the optical drives are really overkill and I guess one will have to go. Just an accumulation of drives I've had from various systems I've built so didn't want them to just sit around. I will probably do a RAID 1 installation and yes I'm familiar with those. Afterall, believe or not, I have a IT degree. I was just looking for a configuration because everybody has differing opinions on just what is most efficient. So saying all that, I think I will install the two 200GB hard drives and remove the DVD player or CDRW and the 80GB hard drive. Thanks guys for all the assistance.