What is the best way to maximize game loading speeds?

[drowningfly]

I want to spend £120-£150 ($185-$230) on new storage to improve the loading times of high end games with high resolution textures and models. At least 2TB of space is needed and I have 1 available SATA III port, and 4 SATA II ports. This is separate from the OS drive.

The most cost effective way to maximize read/write speed seems to be to get several slower drives in a RAID array, rather than fewer faster ones. Am I correct in thinking that a RAID 0 array of slower drives would not improve the IOPS or latency?

I am thinking of getting 3x WD 1TB Blue in RAID 0, which should be at least 2.5x faster read/write than a single high end drive, but still have 10% less IOPS and around 10% higher latency.

Which would be better for high end gaming? Or am I misunderstanding the whole thing?

 

[clutchc]

From my limited experience with RAID 0, there was no noticeable increase in read/write performance. There may have been "on paper", but I couldn't see it in real life.

 

[drowningfly]

I am getting new drives because a drive in my old RAID 0 array died, and am currently running off only one drive. There has definitely been a significant increase in load times for me. I guess it depends on your setup and what you are doing.