Raid 0 Boot Drive question

[ProUser]

Sorry if this is a stupid question..

My current setup is a RAID 0 with 2 40 gig 7200 RPM drives. I do, and run everything off of those drives. (Another small drive used for critical backup information).

I plan on upgrading my computer within the next few months, and I'm currently thinking about getting 2 Raptors and putting them into a RAID 0.

Naturally, I want all of my games, newsgroup readers, etc to be on the Raptor RAID. Then I'd probably either just separate the other RAID, or use it as storage for MP3's and general stuff like that.

My question basically is, is there *much* of an advantage to having a COMPLETELY separate boot drive? Basically having nothing on it but the OS. And then use the RAID to store all the programs / games / hard drive intensive applications? Does that offer any great performance gain, or would running XP as well as my programs/games off the Raptor RAID be the fastest scenario?

Thanks for any insight!

 

[Mday]

well, the only thing the separate boot drive option will give you is use of the OS if the array goes down. if yo keep all your programs into the array, if the array goes down, you lose it. depending on how you configure things you may as well not have a separate boot drive since you're still going to be crippled without the array, that is, you still cant do much of anything.

the most important thing is having a separate drive for backup and crucial data. non crucial data can also be placed on the array. but with 2x36 for the raptors, you may not have a lot of space.

basically, if you're going to use RAID 0 and take the risk of the array being corrupted, you may as well go all broke if you're going to be crippled when the array goes down.

finally, BACK UP frequently.

RAID 0 will only help with execution time.