New hard drives, do I RAID0 them?

With a limited budget I'd go for #4, FSX (and Vista) will be huge installations and with add-ons you will need space.

It would be nice to have 2 h/d. one for Windows so you can reinstall anytime you want and the other for FSX but 37gig is too small for FSX.

Your going to get some good arguments for the others, let us know what you do.

RadarMan wrote:

With a limited budget I'd go for #4, FSX (and Vista) will be huge installations and with add-ons you will need space.

It would be nice to have 2 h/d. one for Windows so you can reinstall anytime you want and the other for FSX but 37gig is too small for FSX.

Your going to get some good arguments for the others, let us know what you do.

Not for me.I agree 👍

With option 4 I could use the
40Gb hard drive for Windows (-20Gb mp3's) and the
200Gb drive for FS2004/FSX ... or would a 74Gb raptor be enough (or two 37Gb's in RAID0)

Choices, choices ... 😕

A 40 and a 200 would be perfect.
Windows and your anti virus on the 40 (C) and everthing that doesn't take automatic updates on the other.
74 may seem big now but in 2 years you'll be unhappy.

I'm just a bit curious, you say the Dell was bought some time ago, in which case, will the Motherboard accept SATA drives? Lots of other queries, but that's the main one.

He bought a Dell Dimension 3000 which was a poor choice, however I was unable to help him at the time.

It came with:
Intel Celeron D 330 (2.66GHz) Processor
512MB PC3200 DDR Memory
80GB 7,200rpm Hard Drive - I thought it was 40, perhaps I've underestimated Microsofts hunger for bytes?
AC'97 Audio with Dell A215 Stereo Speakers
Intel Extreme 2 Integrated Graphics with 64MB Shared Memory

I tried to fit a graphics card (9800pro) only to find that the motherboard did not have an AGP slot so I also had to replace the motherboard (with a
Jetway PM9MSR2). Also, it now has an extra 512Mb.

It now does a reasonable effort with FS2004 getting a minimum of 10fps at 1280x1024 (native LCD resolution) but sometimes has a really annoying pause every few seconds.

It's me again. I've never used a phpBB forum before without being logged in. Sorry for the post above, I tried to edit the message before last but didn't realise that option wasn't available for guests

I've found the spec for this Mobo at

http://www.surpluscomputers.com/store/Main.aspx?p=ItemDetail&item=MBB10521

Seems it will run SATA and RAID if required, but not being an Intel user, at a guess the actual overall conclusion is it's not really up to the job.

But maybe someone here with experience of Intel, may be able to give a better answer.

Sorry I can't advise any better, but hope someone else can.

Performance = Raid
Capacity = 200gb

Your system specs will see some benefit in using raid but the difference would be negligable. If you are planning on upgrading the memory and possibly CPU then go for the raid option now. If not then go for the 200gb IDE drive.

Hope it helps.