okay, the system is in process of purchase. they are doing a little more research on optimal memory/motherboard sympatico. Question..... I will now have a machine with a 72 Gig "HD" which is my Raid-0 volume. XP Pro has been installed. (sidebar: there is an external 250 firewire on hand to take work off as completed) 1) is XPPro in fact installed completely on one disc, and THEN the raid array gets constructed? Or is the Raid-0 established on the Motherboard settings, and you install the operating sys and it gets 'arranged' across more than one disk? 2) how and at what amount would you set the swapfile? 3) installing Poser5.exe installing Runtime installing folder for my work in process (pz3s) .... do I just install them on "The Volume" or (despite it being a Raid-0 situation) is there a way (and is it smart) to start them out on one "disc"? Apologies ahead of time for naive Raid-0 questions. Was not involved in these decisions last time I was around a Raid-0 installation. Thanks, ::::: Opera :::::