Windows 7: Raid-0 & Windows 7

Greetings everyone,



I have been trying different raid-0 stripe sizes with Windows 7 with some interesting results, and some questions?

First, I installed Windows 7 on a single WD Raptor ADFD 74GB hard drive and it scored 5.9 in the Windows Performance Index. The average seek time for this drive is 4.6ms (more on that later).

I then setup a raid-0 array in BIOS, using 2 identical Raptors, and reinstalled Windows 7 using a 16K stripe, and the Windows Performance Index (WPI) rated the array at 5.5, then again with a 32k stripe with WPI at 5.7, 64K stripe at 5.7 and 132k stripe also at 5.7. This seems rather odd to me as WPI gave the single drive a better score, isn't raid-0 supposed to improve performance?

I also see that the average seek time of the raid-0 array is about 8.4ms - is this normal for a raid-0 array, or is it supposed to have a quicker seek time than a single drive?

Here are some of my system specs:

WDADFD74 Raptor 74GB, 16MB Cache, SATA, x2
Intel ICH10R onboard SATA Raid Controller
GA-EP45-UD3LR motherboard
Quad Core CPU and 4GB DDR2-800 RAM
Windows 7 64bit

I sincerely appreciate any advice anyone can offer,

Many thanks,

Shane.