maximum number of drives in raid array

[madhd57]

would like some advise on setting up multiple drives in Raid 0 . . . I set up 2 36gb raptors in raid 0 a couple of years ago and have never experienced any problem. I back up to a third drive periodically and any restores have been perfect. I'm wanting to build a new pc with the new 150gb raptors and I'm considering using 4 or more in raid 0 for maximum read speed. Using 4 seems easy enough, but if I wanted to, could I set up 6 on the same mobo (ASUS A8N32-SLI DELUXE) using the silicon bridge and still have a raid 0 for all 6 drives or is using separate bridges like having 2 separate drives?

Has anyone used the external raid on these new motherboards? Is there any speed difference between the on-board raid and the external raid? I've read that 8 seems to be the magic number of drives for optimum performance, but how would I set up 8 drives in a raid 0?

In short, I'm needing much more disk space than what I'm currently using and would like to maximize the read/write speed. Any thoughts would be helpful. Thanks.

[glc]

You are really taking a big chance. If ONE drive hiccups, you lose the entire array. I wouldn't use more than 4 in the same array unless you go RAID 5. I don't know what you can do with the bridge so I can't even answer whether what you want to do is possible.