SATA question

[xElitex]

i'm very very unfamiliar with these drives and setting up a raid array ingeneral.
i was wondering do i HAVE to set up a raid array or can i just install 1 SATA hard drive? another question i have pertains to dual channel memory...is this something that i need to overclock or what? or can i see awesome results by just installing it and leaving it? insight on installing both pieces of hardware would be welcomed as well. i haven't read or kept up on computers in the last couple years and would appreciate the help.


thanks in advance.

[JohnE.]

Yes, you can install just one SATA drive with no need for a RAID array. Although you can overclock most DDR RAM, it isn't a requirement to achieve Dual Channel mode... all you need is 2 DDR chips of the same size and speed (or 3 if your mobo has 3 slots, for example: channel one 2x256 + channel two 1x512 = 512MB in each channel) installed in the appropriate memory slots. The performance gains aren't huge but you'll probably notice a difference when multi-tasking.

[xElitex]

thank you very much for your help, sir.