RAID n00b (Have already read sticky)

[JDawggS316]

I'm slowly but surely beginning to understand the whole concept of a RAID system. However, I am such a n00b that I have to ask some basic questions that I have not been able to find the answers to after reading multiple stickies and posts.

I am currently building a new rig and am planning on purchasing 2-3 WD HDD's. The main HDD will be used for programs, games, etc. The second HDD will be used for storage of pictures, movies and music.

Is this a configuration that would benefit at all from any of the RAID (1,2,3,4,5) systems?

Thanks for the help

[JDawggS316]

Anyone?

[CGR]

You have a few choices.

If all you want is a nice secure storage area, then I would make one drive the boot/games drive and the other two a raid 1 mirror for storage.

If speed is what you want then make a raid 0 stripe, but it has no redundancy.

You could also put all three in a raid 5 and just partition it for your boot/storage needs. Everything will have redundancy but will be slower than the raid 0

[jmorgan]

get a raptor for the OS and programs and a large drive for storage, grab 2 if you want to run raid 1 and have everything on your storage drive backed up

Simple, effective

[Neuromancer]

I am a fan of 2 small cheap OS drives raided in a stripe (raid0) (80GB for instance) then individual storage drives minimum of 2, but was runnning 4 storage drives at one point. No raid on the storage, but i had enough space to keep duplicates of all my really important stuff.

2x80s in raid0 > then a single raptor IMHO. Technically the raptor is quicker due to access times, but the transfer rate is higher on the dual 80s... so.. its half of one...

[tuskenraider]

2x80s in raid0 > then a single raptor IMHO. Technically the raptor is quicker due to access times, but the transfer rate is higher on the dual 80s... so.. its half of one...Considering their aren't any 80GB drives with any great STR speeds, I'd bet your STR rate may be a third faster in benchmarks at best. In typical desktop usage, they won't perform well when compared to the Raptor at all.

[Quick69GTO]

I run two Raptors (36gig) in RAID 0 for Windows and software. I don't game much so the combined capacity of them is fine for me. I create an image of the array about once or twice a month and store it on one of three 320gig drives also in the system.
It takes about 15 minutes to re-image the array should I mess up Windows somehow.

Good luck!