Recommended Tests

First of all, RAID 0+1 generally means using four hard drives, but it's always an even number. Two for the original striped array, and two more for backup for example.That's a considerable increase in noise, while you're still at the disk capacity of one hard drive, and even close to twice the noise one hard disk creates. It's an increase of 9 dB, regardless of what hard drives are used, and a 10 dB increase counts as twice as loud for our ears (even though it's a factor 10 increase in noise power level, as it's a logarithmic scale). You'll notice the difference
Second, it's complete overkill for most, you have to ask youself: Do I really need all that speed, and am I willing to pay the price for it as well?
RAID 0 on its own makes it twice as likely that you lose the data on those harddisks, adding RAID 1 lowers the odds somewhat, but because of using four harddisks in total, it's still possible. So there is also a higher cost for maintaining the RAID set-up.

RAID 0 is useful for video editing, because then you can use the increased speed. Games don't see nearly as much benefit and you'll need to have huge files to make use of it with office programs. RAID 0 with 2 harddrives will have twice the sound power level, but it's a 3 dB increase, so it's not as perceivable as RAID 0+1. For most people RAID is just a gimmick, not something they need to enhance their computer.

in my opinion raid0 shows significant difference even when using only 2 hard drives....anything that requires hd access will show an improvement - or should I say, in my experience....