I've been reading up on this high end gaming PC's. They come with the usual high end processor and Gb's of memory with the best graphic cards out!!! However they also come with a 250Gb at 7,200rpm and 2 x 74Gb Hard Drives at 10,000rpm???? Whats the need? I am guessing there is one and the price of hard drives now a days means i can afford to do the same to my alienware, however any advice on how you would use and delagate what goes were would be helpful! thanx

the two 74Gb drives would be put in a RAID 0 array for programs and the 250GB would be a general storage drive

would second that for a performance boost.

only prob is that if one drive fails you lose all data. risky, but worth it in my opinion.

See my sig, it's similar.

The two Raptor drives in RAID 0 currently give the best performance apart from SCSI drives.

Seagate Cheetahs are quite good too. Do they still make those?

the two raptors in RAID0 provide super fast access to all of your files and programs, while the larger drive can be used for storage, although I would reccommend to use it to back up your RAID0 array too.

I currently have a 74GB raptor and two 36GB raptors. I intend to get myself another 74GB and set up a raid 0 (striped) to create the fastest 140GB+ I can (with a system partition of say 20GB and the rest for games and apps).
The two 36GB raptors I'm planning to mirror (RAID '1') as a 36GB temporary backup drive for downloads and files that I need to burn to DVD etc. I reckon this will give me a very fast and secure setup. (It also helps when you keep limited HDD space because you learn to back stuff up quickly rather than filling massive drives).
I also have two external (80Gb and 40GB drives just in case).

Important things to note:
1. Raptors are expensive and not worth buying purely for RAID - I've got mine gradually over time as i could afford to..the benefits of striped RAID are not worth the outlay of two Raptors at the same time.
2. The more drives, the more power you need and the more cooling in your case
3. The more drives and cooling, the noisier things can get
4. The more drives and cooling, the more wires you end up with
5. If you want multiple drives go for SATA - smaller cable profile

That's my two-penneth on HDDs for what it's worth

On the subject of cooling, I have my 2 Raptors mounted on their sides in the lower cage in the Lian Li case.

I've taken out the grill & mesh at the front and have two Vantec quiet 80mm fans blowing directly over them. The fans are quiet and the HDD's stay nice and cool.

Airflow from these also keeps case temp down.

Only prob is I get more dust as I've removed the filter, usually hoover inside once a week or every two weeks.

One of the reasons i changed from the Lian li P70 to the new V2000 was that I didn't like putting my drives on their sides - a couple of people told me that drives are better off flat ...not sure how much truth there is in it, but I didn't want to take a chance, especially with the price of raptors. The V2000 also has a single 120mm instead of the two 80mm...nice and quiet... and I keep the filter in, mainly 'cos I'm too lazy to hoover!. Having said that, the V2000 has loads of grid holes across the front and back - this means a lot more dust collects inside and noise levels from inside the case are higher. It's all swings and roundabouts isn't it?

That's a fair point you make about putting the drives on their sides, I often wonder about that myself.

A Hard drive is a mechanical device and the reading head is mounted on an arm that scans the disk. Presumably, it's spring mounted.

Therefore, I suppose the build of the drive, in particular the accuracy of the reader, is paramount

Mine are running fine, bought them used about 15 months ago and they've been on their sides all that time.

I think their temperature is probably more important than their orientation.

I also think it's just the way we perceive the working, kinda like an old vinyl turntable maybe, that casts doubt.

I did have my drives in my previous case for quite a while and they're still showing no signs of problems, so I wouldn't worry too much about it - I'm just paranoid i guess