Any tips for tweaking load times?

I figured this would be a fair question for you guys since we're all after the same thing here...

My primary machine runs XP and has a speedy dualcore cpu, top end video card, two gigs of ram, and a pair of raptors in a raid0 setup. My ping times are generally around 160ms, fwiw.

However, it still seems like I'm spending a lot of time staring at the load screen anytime I switch toons or change zones. Naturally, the hard drive lights are just pegged while this is happening. I've defragged, don't have a virus program running, and don't even have any other programs running, etc....

I was thinking of picking up one of the cool new solid state drives that aren't too spendy and seeing how much better wow runs from that...

So has anyone found anything helpful for boosting load times or am I kidding myself that a 6Gig data file is just going to make that a pipe dream?

Thanks,
Blorton

How many characters are you switching between?

I've noticed that I can prevent lag or long loading if I minimize the window's i'm not currently using.

This is just with one wow instance running. No other programs running at all.

It's mainly a hassle when I'm on a break in a raid or something and want to flip to the bank alt on the same account. There's a lot of zone data being read and re-read that gets annoying.

I've also noticed that when zoning into an instance around other players, those who zone in after I do will almost always be ahead of me inside the instance. I'm thinking perhaps something in the raid0 setup I'm running is preventing an efficient large sequental read from happening, or something along those lines.

The solid state ram drives I'd mentioned start at around $130 for an 8gig, which I figured would be perfect for trying with wow. It's too bad newegg is out of stock....

One other reason I was asking here is because I know some are doing the network boot for other machines, and I know from personal experience that for example, installing a new package is much faster from a network server than even a local hard drive. I'd go gigabit network with a speedy bsd nfs share if I thought it would help. :D

Cheers!
Blorton

The number (and type) of add-ons directly impacts your load times. My 4 drive RAID-0 machine with 4 gigs RAM and dual core processor takes forever and a day to zone/load. My crappy 7 year old computer takes less than 30 seconds because it has no add-ons installed.