Complete Raid N00b

I read the sticky and a few others link so i kinda get the basics of raids..
Right now i only got 1 WD 80GB drive, but seing how xmax is right on the corner i could get another one..
But here is where Raid comes in, Is there any real benefits of having 2 drives on Raid? I'm mostly looking for the Pros and Cons, and which Raid lvl (0,1,3,4,5) is best suited for me, cause i really dont know..
I mostly play games, watch dvds, movies, browse, open programs left and right, so nothing major.

I know is way simpler just going the Master/Slave route, but is Raid Worthy?
And is Mobo Raid support Hardware wise or Software?

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Abit kt7 was one of the first mbs to have raid on it.
Works fine for over 2 years now.
I have 2 maxtor drives on it using raid 0.
It does perform better than just one 7200 drive.
Back in the days when i was still playing CS and got my raid set up i was the first player on almost any server to get map changed and get team selection screen.
So imho raid does pay off.

Well, perfomance is one of the things i'm looking for, so if raid (0) gives me faster read/write time (correct me if i'm wrong) then i'm all up to it..
Another thing i like is how raid makes it look like just 1 logical drive (2 x 80gb = 140gb) which brings me to my next question..
Can you make partitions on raid setup?
And can anyone answer me if mobo raid support is hardware or software?

And if someone could clear this up i be very thankfull
Raid0 + 2 Drives = One big logical drive with no lost of GB..
Raid1 + 2 Drives = One use as main and the other as backup, so really only using just 1 drive?
Again, thanks in advance

Forgat to ask.. is it ok to mix 2 diff hdd?
Like a 80gb hdd with a 120gb?

so:

- yes raid will improve you performance

- raid support on motherboard is hardware. Usually raid chip is located in the bottom right corner of the mb. Again usually its high point or promise chip.

-it's better to use identical drives for raid setup due to their similar physical characteristics (imagine if you will a car with 15" wheels on the right and 17" on the left. Sure you can drive it, but the handling would not be superb at all) Both in raid 0 and 1 the total size of the massive would be that of smaller drive ( double in case of raid 0).

- yes you can do anything with a raid massive that you can do with a hardrive on software level (format, partion etc.)

As to some basics of raid:
-raid 0 writes odd bites to one drive and even bites to the second, thus by doing it simultaneously you can have up to double the data transfer rate comparing to a single drive.

-raid 1 uses both drives as well but writes the same information on both, thus creating a 'back up on the fly'. So if anything, god forbid, happens to one drive the data will still be available from the second.

SolidWolf said:

Forgat to ask.. is it ok to mix 2 diff hdd?
Like a 80gb hdd with a 120gb?

Click to expand...

Don't quote me on this one, but I believe if you are doing Raid 1 (mirroring), it will only use 80gb of the 120gb dirve. I think it may be like that for Raid 0 too, but I am not sure.

to give you an idea of raid 0 performance:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/storage/ide-scsi/

here is the interesting part:
"...First, we have learned that IDE RAID arrays can compete on equal terms with single SCSI drives in a number of applications... "
taken from source above.