I am running 1Gb of RAM. The disk is not an issue in any of my renders, unless I'm multi-tasking with another program. Of, course I don't render scenes with lots of characters like SVDL does. He certainly pushes Poser to the extreme. I don't know what OperaGuy renders. The swap file is virtual memory. When you "use up" your physiscal RAM, the "least recently used" data/program is swapped out to virtual memory to free up physical RAM. If you are thrashing your swap file, then you need more RAM. Most home users are lax about backup. This makes Raid 0 more of a risk. With Raid 0, you double your risk of data loss due to drive failure (compared to a single drive). With Raid 1, you risk of data loss is halved, both drives have to fail in order for you to lose data.