I have no idea as to what HD I should get I've heard good things about the raptor but it's too expensive what would be a good alternative to the raptor for gaming?
You dont need the raptop, it is just fast and will help your gaming. You ccan get the advantage the raptor would have given you by just using other good parts. If you dont want to buy it, you dont have to. It's not a necessity, a 7200rpm will do you just fine.
Him hit the spot. Raptors really are unnecessary unless your crazed about fast game loading and OS loading. The difference is quite noticeable, but really not ridiculously fast.
If you aren't getting a raptor, look into getting a Seagate Barracuda, preferably with NCQ (Native Command Queuing). They are some of the fastest/most quiet 7200RPM drives out there, and NCQ speeds up their requests a good bit.
A RAID 0 is be a good setup as an alternative to the raptor. The only problem with RAID 0 is that it can crap out your storage in a heartbeat. Most people usually don't have problems though.
What are the advantages of a Raid configuration?? Does it go faster or something? I've heard alot about it but I don't really know what it does. Also, do the HDs in the RAID have to be the same kind from the same company???
RAID 0 is where you get 2 disks and they appear as one disk, so you get more space, and it is a bit faster, but not much. It isn't even RAID really, since nothing is redundant.
Well for gaming i would have to say a Hitachi SATA 2 drive. I've had one for about 2 months now and DAM this thing is fast.
The game loading times are so quick compared to my old SATA drives.
You even have to watch closely to see the windows loading screen the way it goes so fast.