This is the compactified definition I nicked...

"RAID is Redundant Array of Inexpensive Devices, a method of using multiple disks to improve performance, reliability or both. Forms of RAID include: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 7, RAID 10, RAID 53 and SLED."

Try looking at http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... i=1491&p=2

Basically, RAID 0 is disk striping with no parity - good performance but reduced reliability, while RAID 1 is disk mirroring, where the same data gets written to two drives.

So is RAID worthwhile enough to add the extra two hundred dollars to have it installed in a laptop? I think I'd be fine with the standard 120 GB drives they offer but never hurts to have too much...

RAID on a laptop? It wouldn't be worth it, unless you are running something that makes the HDDs a bottleneck. You might pick up a slight speed increase, but considering the fact that laptop HDDs are usually a slow 5400rpm, it probably wouldn't be a good investment.

Alienware offers 7200 RPM drives in RAID, though I don't need the 200GB + storage that offers, I don't think. Although its for school, I'll want to be able to play some high end games (i.e. Darkstar One). Its either the RAID, or the dual SLI video cards, I don't think I can afford to splurge on both. Though the manufacturer advertises 100% performance increases with SLI, I've not heard too many good things about it here on TLR. What's the consensus on that?

the consensus is that we don't really like laptops for gaming, Alienware or otherwise, and never have. It's not something they do terribly well, although they're better at it than they were.

As the Chimaera rightly points out, RAID in a laptop? I can see the temptation, but it's not something that imo is even worth attempting. Now, in a decent desktop, a RAID-0 array over a couple of decent SATA2 drives would give you a real boost in performance. That's what I run in Borromir and it really gives the old boy some poke. RAID-1 isn't much use to you. My server, Saruman runs a RAID-5 array over 4x 80gb Seagates, purely so a/ I don't lose any data if I have a disk crash (although Diskeeper pretty much prevents that in the first place0 with b/ a respectable disk access speed over the network, because my server is where all my films and music and installs and anti-virus/spyware mirrors are.

As far as SLi goes, go for it, colleague! Once the Tawakalnistan State treasury recovers from it's reduced state this year, that's what I'm going to do. Borromir is going to get a good nForce4 board, AMD64 and 2x SLi

Well, I'll have to use it for what gaming I'll be doing in school anyways. No sense in having two computers at this point. Thanks for the advice, Grand Mullah.

no problem, colleague, always happy to help. that'll be 3 camels and a crate of RPG-7s please.

How convienient. Since the Yankee Imperialist dogs have cut all the roads, I'll just have the camels pack them in there.

class them as plumbing supplies on the export documentation, that's what we always do.

Well I suppose its a bit more expediant than using a Roto-Rooter.