What can I do to speed up things?

[mcwildcard]

I currently have 1 x 40GB SATA HDD for XP and 1 x 250GB SATA HDD for my media, my aim is to try and speed up XP.
I read the FAQ sticky and see that I may not see any benefit from upgrading to an SATA2 HDD in single configuration, so my other options are:
Buying a Raptor
Grabbing another 40GB HDD and setting up RAID
Getting 2 x 40GB SATA2 HDDs and setting up RAID with those

I know there's no hard and fast answer, but do any of those options stand out over the rest?

Thanks in advance for the advice

 

[mcwildcard]

I don't think you will find too many 40gb SATA drives at all now, nevermind ones with enhanced SATA features (just remembered there is no such thing as SATAII per se).

Depending on what your old hard drive is picking a new hard drive is likely to speed up the system quite well for the cost through advances in drive technology. You could also try putting your page file onto the other drive as that can help.

The 40GB SATA I'm currently using was bought quite recently (in fact it was sent by a company in error to my work and we were told to keep it ) and they still have stock left for about £35. I suppose if I was to grab 2 x SATA2 HDDs then I may as well grab 80GB ones, as they're approx the same price as the 40GB ones anyway.
I do have a 50GB partition on my media drive (used to be my XP partition), I might stick the page file on there and see if that helps, cheers

 

[mcwildcard]

I wouldn't delve down the RAID0 route unless you know what your doing and are prepared to deal with problems. It would be much better in my opinion to pick up the latest 250gb SATA2 drive and get the OS installed on that, you should hopefully see the system being slightly more responsive.

Also what's the spec of your system, there may be other ways to get more out of the system.

System:
E6300 @ 2.8GHz
AC Freezer 7 Pro
Gigabyte 965P-DS3
2 x 1GB OcUK Value PC6400
BFG 8800GTS 320MB
1 x 40GB SATA HDD (Used for Windows)
1 x 250GB SATA HDD (Partitioned: 200GB/50GB)
Windows XP Pro 32Bit


Basically, I'm happy with my actual system speed (in games and apps), but would like XP itself to load and run quicker for day to day use.