Hello,

i’m trying to buy a new computer, a HPZ800. But I’m stuck in choosing wich RAID configuration.

The main use for the PC will be for 3dsmax work, general simulations (fumefx, realflow, etc), rendering and a heavy use of After Effects and HD rendering.

So the idea is to have a PC that can take on all of that.. I’m thinking something like this:
2x Intel Xeon 2.4ghz 6 cores
NVIDIA Quadro 4000
16gb ram DDR3-1333

But I don’t know which is better, if RAID 1 or 5 (0 is too risky for this project).

I’m thinking RAID 5 like this:

1x Boot HDD: 300gb 10k rpm

4x RAID 5 HDDs: 500gb 7200 rpm

So.. if i’ve got 4x 500gb, the usable gb will be 1500gb? (1 hdd goes to parity right?)

So my question is if this is the way to go, I think I need to read fast but the writing can be a little lower, due to rendering/simulation time

And the other thing is, will I get better performance if I add another HDD to the raid?

Thanks for your insights!