[Buzz Foster]

Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair with nForce 590 SLI AMD chipset, and SATA

Drives: 2 Hitachi Deskstar 500GB with data on both (one is the boot drive), 2 1TB Hitachi Deskstars with data on neither.

I want data redundancy. What is the best configuration with my number of drives, two RAID 1 setups, or RAID 0+1?

And how do I set it up, especially with existing data? Can I just move the data from my secondary 500GB to one of the 1TB drives and do the setup, or do i need to move the data completely and do a clean OS install?

[Buzz Foster]

BTW, there is enough room on my boot drive to put all my secondary data on it, so i could move it all to one drive if I needed to.

[Brian Sharp]

I operate with a Raid 1 setup which, basically, covers against hard drive failure. If one drive fails you have all your data on the second hard drive.
The only problem I had with the setup was installing the RAID drivers; not sure if this was a problem with my Asus motherboard but once they were installed it was very strightforward. Takes a while for the data to be copied from one hard drive to the other but after that is done you can sit back and forget about it.
I have had one hard drive failure and was pleased(an understatement!) that I had the backup on the second hard drive

[Buzz Foster]

Cool! So you did not have to remove your data and start over?

I am considering doing that anyway, because I want to upgrade to XP 64 bit. I'm thinking a clean install might be best.

But should I choose not to, I can do this all without erasing my data?

[SethH]

You've got 4 drives. To maximize available disk space and also minimize risk of data loss I would recommend RAID-5. This would require you to buy a RAID controller card -- preferably PCIe.

For example: Newegg.com - SoNNeT TSATAII-E4P PCI Express SATA II Controller Card - Retail

Certainly adds some costs, but would provide the benefits mentioned above in addition to reducing CPU overhead since the RAID control will be handled by the card rather than the primary CPU.

[SethH]

Edit to my above post . . . .

Since your drives are not all the same size RAID 5 would not be efficient. Your two best options are, IMO, RAID 10 or RAID 01.

RAID 01 is a mirror of stripes. In your case you would stripe (RAID 0) a 1TB drive with a 500GB drive (and then do the same with the other pair). Then you would mirror those two stripes (RAID 1).

RAID 10 is a stripe of mirrors. To do this you would mirror your identical drives to one another (RAID 1) and then stripe those mirrors (RAID 0). Generally speaking, I would recommend RAID 10 over RAID 01.

[Hanson Yoo]

Basically, your only real option is 2 RAID1 sets, 500GB for OS and 1TB for data. The problem is that you have 2 500GB drives and 2 1TB drives, and any other RAID configuration will bump the 1TB drives down to 500GB because thay all have to be the same size.

I don't think there is a way to preserve any data when you create the RAID. You need to do a clean install and load the drivers during the OS installation.