I've read, searched, but need advice on RAID Setup

[AMDGuy]

I've ordered a new system to replace my aging AMD Opteron setup.

Intel i5 750
4GB OCZ Platinum 10666 (2x2GB)
Gigabyte P55 UD3R Mainboard
MSI Radeon R4670 Graphics Card
2 x WD Caviar Green 1.5TB Drives
Megahalem CPU Cooler

I do plan a decent overclock of this system, if that affects the RAID setup at all.

I have 2 x 500GB Hitachi Ultrastar 32MB Cache and 2 x 250GB Maxtor Maxline III 16mb cache drives to go along with the 1.5TB Caviar drives. The Hitachi and Maxtor's are from stock I had laying around the house from previous systems and the WDs are new drives.

SO, the question is what to setup as far a a RAID solution for performance and redundancy using the drives above?

I DO NOT GAME. My main heavy use activity is HD video editing.

I was considering:

500GB Hitachis in RAID 1 for OS/swap file and programs split in to two partitions - 100GB for OS/progs/swap and 400GB for data space such as documents, utilities, etc.

250GB Maxtors in RAID 0 for temp video space for editing (performance while editing)

1.5TB WDs in RAID 1 for data storage (completed video projects etc).

I have a 1TB external USB drive that I keep pretty good backups on today and will use that on the new system as well.

Or should I split the 500GB Hitachis into two partitions:

100GB RAID 0 - OS and Programs (for quick boot and use)
400GB RAID1 for some data

I wasn't sure how much of a PITA the above split would be in the event of a drive failure as far as recovery goes.

Thanks in advance. I'm an IT Pro, so RAID isn't new to me, but we strictly use RAID 1 at work for redundancy not performance, so this setup is a bit different than I'm used to as I don't deal with desktops to know their strengths and weaknesses.

[tuskenraider]

Your first consideration looks right on. I wouldn't consider doing a Matrix setup on the Hitachis as you have more than enough drives to bother compromising with that.

[AMDGuy]

Your first consideration looks right on. I wouldn't consider doing a Matrix setup on the Hitachis as you have more than enough drives to bother compromising with that.

Thanks for the input.

[hank123]

raid 1 is great to make sure that you dont lose anything. keep note that it will write a little slower. Read will be bout the same.

Raid 0 is great. Very fast. I love my raid 0. I will never go back to just a single drive.

[karkas]

raid 1 is great to make sure that you dont lose anything. keep note that it will write a little slower. Read will be bout the same.

Raid 0 is great. Very fast. I love my raid 0. I will never go back to just a single drive.

I thought reads on RAID1 were faster than single drives?:chair:

[tuskenraider]

I thought reads on RAID1 were faster than single drives?:chair:They can be if the controller has onboard cache to handle accelerated reads. No onboard RAID controllers like this exist and plug in cards that do = $$$.

[karkas]

They can be if the controller has onboard cache to handle accelerated reads. No onboard RAID controllers like this exist and plug in cards that do = $$$.

SO I guess ICH10R wouldn't fall into this category...