I like the new WD Velociraptor drives... specifically the new 2.5" 300GB version.

I currently own two Raptors... the originaly 36GB and a later 150GB. I use the 150GB as my OS (Vista64) drive, and the other as my exclusive Photoshop scratch disk.

I typically open 350-600 mb Photoshop layered files. Photoshop is a pig for using HDD scratch space... and I am lately using up all of my 36GB for just that. Time for an upgrade. Storage space isn't a problem.... these days it's cheap. What I need is speed and reliability.

The Velociraptor is supposedly 35% faster than the Raptor... which is already fast. That's why upgrading to that seems like a logical step.

What I want to know is my options for speed.

I have heard a lot about RAID. I do have a built in controller on my motherboard... so it's an option. Am i potentially going to get better performance out of a modern pair of decently large drives running RAID-0 than the Velociraptor???

Looking for some educated opinions/recommendations.

THANKS!!!

A RAID 0 will give you a little performance boost. However, be aware you are at least twice as likely to lose data in a failure, so be sure to either back up like mad, or just use the array for scratch space.

Yes, I realize that a mboard failure would pretty much ensure i never see the contents of those drives again. But yes... mostly I am looking for scratch space only.

I found these benchmark tests... but not sure which one really represents the performance I am after.

These seem to show the Velociraptor a little weak compared to some others:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HDD ... 14-12.html
and http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HDD ... 14-11.html

While this benchmark shows it to be better:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HDD ... 14-10.html

Actually, it's not so much a MB failure, but a failure of either drive. The data is spread across both drives, so if you lose one drive, you lose all your data. If it's scratch space, it doesn't matter.

My 2 cents:
- speed, reliability and fault tolerance don't match with price.
- usually integrated mobo controllers are not performing at the top (cheap solutions)
- benchmarks are not reliable, too many variables at play.