Best HDD setup (RAID 0)

[inflames988]

Currently my desktop has the following drives:
1 x 320GB WD (SATA II)
2 x 320GB Seagate (SATA II)
1 x 250GB Maxtor (PATA)
(all have 16MB cache)

I will also be adding two new drives, Seagate 500GB SATA II drives with 32MB cache, which i just ordered on newegg.

Im looking to set up at LEAST one (if not two) RAID 0 partitions (since i have two of the same seagate 320GB drives and two of the same seagate 500GB drives). My question is how you guys would reccomend setting this whole thing up.

Would it be better to use the 500GB drives in RAID 0 as the boot drive? (I will probably be dual or triple booting, XP Professional, Ubuntu 7.10, and possibly windows Vista later on). I usually prefer to keep the boot drive as small as possible, but these drives are newer and have more cache. Will this offer any performance increase over the 320GB drives w/ only 16mb cache?

Secondly, Is there any real benefit to putting the "other two" drives (whichever ones I DONT use for the O/S) in RAID 0? I use the computer for alot of media related stuff - have my whole DVD collection on there so that I dont have to bring it to school with me, as well as a pretty vast collection of music. I also plan to begin ripping all my CD's into itunes in "lossless" format, which will take a fair amount of space. I prefer to have several "large" partitions rather than multiple small ones, so RAID 0 is ideal, but at the same time if there is not much of a performance benefit I would probably be more comfortable keeping them separate, since if one drive crashes in RAID 0 I will be out of luck. I try to back up as much as possible, but I can usually only do this for important documents since I have so many large files (DVD's, etc) on the HDD. I figure if a drive goes out, I can always rip the DVDs again from the originals at my house if worst comes to worst.

any other suggestions on how I should configure all these drives (in addition to the questions above) would be great.

[EzyStvy]

Short answer - use the two 320's cause you'll need 640 gigs to back the darn thing up.
One little hiccup and you lose all the data in a Raid 0.

[inflames988]

is it really that bad? anytime ive had a hard drive die (only once) its been a slow process starting with the drive making weird noise or being slow, rather than it just dying all at once....

[EzyStvy]

Ya never know when something is going to bite the dust...Many people have had more bad luck with new drives then old one.

The controller card can have issues that break the array.

Windows can have issues that break the array.

Then again, you could go years without problems....

[inflames988]

wish i had another one of those WD 320's. I could do an array that's striped AND mirrored and have the best of both worlds

[glc]

Striping and mirroring is not efficient and not that safe - the only raid I trust is raid 5 on a true hardware controller.

Put your OS's and apps on one of those 320's. Buy 1 TB drives for your vast collection of data. Use the remaining drives on an external dongle for backups.

[inflames988]

OK, guess ill stay away from the RAID as much as i'd like to use it. is there a way i can use the RAID SATA ports on my motherboard as just regular SATA ports? i know theres gotta be, if i just connect drives to them and dont configure the drives as a RAID array will they just work as regular SATA ports? once my 500's come i will have 5 SATA HDDs and 1 SATA DVD+-RW drive, and i have 4 each of SATA and SATA RAID ports.

[glc]

NF4 Ultra:
2x IDE (ATA100)
4x SATA (RAID 0,1,0+1)

Silicon Image 3114 CT:
4x SATA (RAID 0,1,0+1, JBOD)

Both controllers are *capable* of RAID, but do not have to be *used* as RAID. Each one has its own BIOS and can be set to RAID or independent drive operation. I recommend you fill up the NF4 first, then use the Sil - and if you use eSATA, put those on the Sil.

[inflames988]

Originally Posted by glc NF4 Ultra: 2x IDE (ATA100) 4x SATA (RAID 0,1,0+1) Silicon Image 3114 CT: 4x SATA (RAID 0,1,0+1, JBOD) Both controllers are *capable* of RAID, but do not have to be *used* as RAID. Each one has its own BIOS and can be set to RAID or independent drive operation. I recommend you fill up the NF4 first, then use the Sil - and if you use eSATA, put those on the Sil.

sorry if it sounds basic but how exactly do i set the RAID ports so that they just work as regular sATA, that is, how do i get into the BIOS for these ports?

[glc]

Read your motherboard manual - that will be addressed in the bios section.

[inflames988]

much appreciated, thanks. ugh, i have quite the computer mess to sort out over winter break. i got my dying HDD rma'd, and now another one is starting to make clicking noises. nothing shows up when i run diagnostics but i have a bad feeling about it. also planning to reformat and set up an XP/ubuntu dual boot which isn't hard but is surely time consuming...and lastly, swap cases. I'll never buy another bargain case again; it looks great and is small, but i can't use alll the hard drive bays because the drive rack is so close to the motherboard that the drives hit the capacitors, and everything is way too cralmped and poorly laid out.