installing a RAID 0 array

[MikeyBK]

Anyone have experience setting up a RAID array on a new build?
I'm looking for a step by step guide. I know that I will need to set up the RAID 0, and then press F6 to install the RAID drivers from a floppy disc, and then finish loading the Windows XP...but I'm not 100% sure on the exact sequence of steps...which to do when...

Any guidance will be apprecisted,,

[Chewy]

you have already covered it, just make sure you set up the raid stripe/performance in the raid bios, pretty straightforward, after that have the floppy ready for the F6, personally I would partition and then even have a third drive as a single for extra backup of critical data since a stripe is
twice as likely to crash and you lose everything.

[jm1647]

I bought a coupla 200GB SATA HDD to do RAID with but then decided against it because of the tendency to lose stuff

[admin]

Sorry for hijacking this thread a bit, is RAID 0 really that much faster than RAID 1? Would RAID 1's read speeds be a bit faster since you are reading from two drives, instead of one?

What about RAID 5?

[Chewy]

raid 0 reads and writes can be 25-75 % faster on average, seems mostly for gamers where you need to load a gig or 2 into ram faster

raid 1 reads are ~~the same speed as a single drive, writes are a little slower

raid 5 with 4 drives is the best of all worlds, fast and safe

I was benching a stripe of 2 deathstars when I killed one of them
We lost another one where the dj's had digitized 60 gig's of music
The last stripe of hitachi satas died shortly after a lady spent 2 weeks
working on taxes for a business.

I hate raid

[admin]

I suppose a 320 GB RAID 0 array with third 320/500 GB backup/media drive would be something I would consider, all of which would cost less than a single 750 GB drive right now. Get automated backup going during the night, every couple of days, that should work.