Sata 2 vs WD Raptors

[Designer]

Not trying to start a mass debate but i'm looking at building a new PC after payday :)

I've hit a little stumbling block, been looking at a few options, originally I wanted to get WD raptors (3 of them in raid 0) and was unaware at the time that SATA2 drives were starting to make an appearance. Now i'm torn between 3 raptors or three of these http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/104346

The only downside i can see is i havnt seen too many SATAII mobo's yet but was interested in which would offer the better performance.

In your opinion what would be the best option for speed as i'm building this PC for gaming and graphics work.

[EzyStvy]

The raptors are more expensive. But the 10k rpm that they do would be faster then the 7200 drives you linked too.

[glc]

3 drives in RAID 0? You are a very adventurous soul..........

If you want max speed *and reliability* along with a decent amount of storage, look at standalone Raptor 150's.

[minsonngo]

Yeah, 3 drives running in RAID 0 mode is pretty risky. You lose one drive and all is lost.

Just get one raptor and use it as your primary HDD. Then use some large drive for storage as a secondary.

[Designer]

i've kinda decided to go with 4 250mb sata II maxtor's now, was thinking i know you can run 3 drives as raid 5 i think is it? where one drive contains info about the others? can this be done with 3 drives striped and the other one?

probably explained it badly but you get what i mean.

[glc]

Four drives in RAID 5 will give you the capacity of 3 drives and data integrity. It is not used to increase performance. I'd do that but use a separate Raptor for the OS and applications.