I havn't found any application for which I need a faster harddisk or storage device as I currently have, but when I do, I'll try the following: fa=vol1.img fb=vol2.img #Create the files dd if=/dev/zero of=$fa bs=1 count=100M dd if=/dev/zero of=$fb bs=1 count=100M la=`losetup -f` losetup -f $la "$fa" lb=`losetup -f` losetup -f $lb "$fb" pvcreate "$la" "$lb" vgcreate fastgroup "$la" "$lb" lvcreate -i2 -l 2 -n fastvol fastgroup This will create two files called vol1.img and vol2.img, filled with zeros (dd lines). Setup the loop devices (losetup), create the physical volumes (pvcreate), create the volume group (vgcreate) and set up a logical volume which stripes the two loopback devices (lvcreate). (You will need the LVM tools and kernel drivers). Now you will have /dev/fastgroup/fastvol as a striping device over vol1.img and vol2.img. This may sound stupid, but: if you repeat the process, but put vol1.img and vol2.img on seperate devices (seperate disks, memory sticks or other external devices) you will have a striping image over multiple devices. As long as your processor and communication overhead doesn't kill you, this will create a faster volume! You can even extend it over more images by extending the commands! As I said, I'm not sure why I would need faster disk access, but hey. Here is how it could be done. If you want you can also make it into a script, like so: #!/bin/sh fa=$0 fb=$1 #Don't create the files, they should already be there #dd if=/dev/zero of=$fa bs=1 count=100M #dd if=/dev/zero of=$fb bs=1 count=100M #Loopback them la=`losetup -f` losetup -f $la "$fa" lb=`losetup -f` losetup -f $lb "$fb" #Start LVM pvcreate "$la" "$lb" vgcreate fastgroup "$la" "$lb" lvcreate -i2 -l 2 -n fastvol fastgroup #Mount #mount /dev/fastgroup/fastvol |