"PA" wrote...

I am assembling a new PC and have a quick question... Should I put
more money buying a quad core processor and 1 HD 500GB or a dual core
processor and 2 HD 250GB in raid?

I was thinking in the first option, but a friend told me 2 HD working
itogether will make the pc faster.

I use relatively heavy databases and intensive statistical
programming.

RAID 1 (mirror) will not measurably improve performance. RAID 0 (stripe) will
improve performance, but with a higher risk of data loss from a single HD
failure.

For your database work, you should go to RAID 10 (stripe + mirror) for
performance + data safety, which will require a minimum of 4 HDs. If you REALLY
need the performance, I'd go with 6 x WD Raptor 150s in RAID 10.

Unless your database or statistics program can use 4 cores, or you run both at
the same time, you'll likely be better off with a dual-core CPU at a higher
clock speed.