More raid - partition question

[ranarama]

I have a question as a Raid novice...I have 2 x 1TB drives and a new copy of windows 7 that I've not installed yet. I was wondering if I should set up the 2TB drives in Raid 0 for speed and then partition the drive so I can install windows on one partition and maybe Linux on another as a dual boot.

I have a separate 1TB drive for all my data and an external one for backups.

Is partitioning a Raid array possible and would I see any speed benefit in doing this or is it just a waste of time?

Sorry if this has been answered already, I've searched but can't really find what I'm looking for.

 

[rpstewart]

It's entirely possible to partition a RAID0 array (I've got 3 on mine). In theory this can give some performance benefits due to partitions restricting the data to smaller part of the disk. This can reduce the random access time because the heads don't have to move as far but as soon as you access one of the other partitions the game's a bogey.

The normal benefit of allowing a reinstall of the OS partition while keeping the rest of the partitions intact still apply of course.

 

[ranarama]

OK thanks. I don't think accessing the other partition will be a problem as I was intending to use it for a different OS so it shouldn't need to access that bit anyway.