Recommended HD/SSD Setup - Halp!!

Unsure of the best combination of HD/SSD for performance and storage, for my needs. This computer is going to be used for gaming, music production, and video editing so I'm going to need a fast performing SSD for games, and lots of storage for all the music and video files - which add up quite fast.

For the SSD I have picked out the 120Gb OCZ Vertex 2 and for the HDs WD Black 1.5Tb.

I know the OS and select games will go on the SSD, and all the music/videos on the HD, but I'd like to backup all my work and I'm afraid I'll run out of room on a single 1.5Tb drive much too soon.

So, I'm not sure how many HDs I'll need, and what RAID configuration, if any, to use. What's the best way of achieving the best performance, the most amount of space, and data recovery?!?

Well, your selections and plan are fine. I use my Vertex 2 100GB for OS, games and apps just for faster loading and responsiveness (won't increase your FPS). I use my 1TB drive for storage of music, movies, etc... I also partitioned off 100GB of the 1TB drive for a Backup image of my SSD after everything was installed using Acronis.

I don't reccomend using RAID for your PC's storage unless you're going with something like RAID-5 with some fault tolerance and parity (which means you need at least 3 storage drives). Just get your self another 1.5TB WD Black in JBOD or a 2TB if you need the space because you already have the speed where you're actually going to notice it with the apps on the SSD.

when you back-up a drive it is not really creating a full image, usually it is storing vital information to help rebuild if needed. If you wanted to do a full image backup every time you would need to do as King said and partition off 120GB of your 1.5tb drive into a backup only drive and use 3rd party backup software to backup the image to that partition whenever you want it to do so. If you run out of space on the 1.5 it is because of the music/movies etc and not because of your backup files.

Sorry for being unclear, but I wanted to backup my music as well... I'm essentially asking whats the best way to "backup my backup", so to speak.

If you are only looking for some safety for your data then a RAID-5 is a great way to go because you can recover from drive failures and have the added bonus of a bit more data through put. There is also always the option of external drives for back up.