Nonsense, RAID 0 on Sandforce or Indilinx controllers is extremely safe, at least one and possibly two magnitudes of order greater than RAID 0 with regular magnetic disks from 2007 or before. Multiple fault level protections ensure very safe arrays. Even better is when using the RAID O array with Intel RST driver 9.6 or later. With this, you have about seven levels of backup against data loss. And for those who are still worried, you can easily use the imaging feature of Windows 7 Professional editions to make a daily bit for bit back up. For the price of one more expensive Crucial drive, you can buy two smaller OCZ Vertex 2 drives and put them in RAID 0 and acquire better performance for less money.

To answer your question Nephalim, a RAID 0 is when you use two or more identical hard drives to store information in a bisected manner such as your name with N to drive 1, e to drive 2, p to drive 1, h to drive 2, a to drive 1, and so on. Basically you come very close to doubling your read speeds (up to the amount of bits allowed per second over the SATA interface your using = bandwidth)

Tom's Hardware says otherwise. They have more resources to test than most. Early adopters are going to be the ones that are willing to lose all their data compared to hard drives with spinning platters. I'm sure that will change eventually. They don't say they are bad. They do not say they are better than mechanical hard drives as far as reliability.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html

Use an imaging program with your RAID 0, if you are afraid of failure. Windows 7 Professional includes one natively, and there is freeware Paragon. Check it out.

Also, FYI, ...Tomshardware is filled with folks who studied journalism, literature and resource management for a degree, and whose knowledge of tech is designed to talking about it rather than designing it. AFAIK, no reputable electrical engineers on staff.

Kind of sums up internet sites and blogs in general. Just folks making a living by writing opinions -- that aren't worth much as they are not technically qualified to comment (with important rare Exceptions). Still, technical sites are quite "objective" compared to political sites.

I not only read a bunch of tech sites daily, like others, I follow the "political and financial" news blogs. Most writers don't have "credentials" as "thinkers". And, even the few who might have things of value to impart routinely let "ideology" trump "facts and figures" -- and let "personal attack" stand in for thoughtful rebuttals based on "cold logic". But, hey, "thinking" is hard work. Moreover, if one thinks, they may find out they've been "wrong" -- can't have that I'm sure I've said nothing new -- we've all noticed.

In summary, hard to know who or what to believe without reading too-much on both sides, checking facts and figures, and "doing the math" one's self (which I spend too much time trying to do ). Oh well, consider the alternative -- a "centrally managed" media that only prints what the "powers that be" allow it to print.

Feeling too political today. End rant

TBH, i've been watching SSDs, and i still dont think they have all the quirks worked out, so My AMD BD System will run Two SATA-III Drives in Raid, and that Image will be backed up to a backup drive or I'll run Raid-5 I think it is (where 2 Disks are Stripped and both disks have a physical backup incase of drive failure).

That's the feeling I get, not quite ready.

I'm looking at building a new rig in the next few months though, and its a tough decision. I want the extra performance but reliability is the downside..........

I got this - OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive

Eh..pffftt. They're at least as reliable as spinners, but any drive can fail.
I wouldn't build a new rig without one.
Just expensive still.

Yeah, if I build a new PC without one then I'll regreat it, no doubt.