Can anyone explain to me How to configure 2 HDD's in a RAID configuration?
I am still having problems deciding which to choose and how it works ..RAID 1-10?
I want to place an OS on the Master HD and a strage HD as a slave. Will that work? Which RAID config would be the best bet. I heard RAID 0 is doomed to fail 1 or both of the HD's. Backing thing's up regularly is way too tedious. Who wants to go through a spindle of DVDs every few days. I used to backup 200 GBs data a weekend. Too many DVDs. I used up (2) 1 TB external hard drives in a new york second. No more of that. I need another option, because I frequently lose 100's of gigs of data when least expected. Who wants to backup every single day. I just got tired of it. It is Always the OS failing too or some unknown windows explorer problem. Not that it happens all the time. Maybe 10-15 times a year give or take. All in all I want to use the OS on it's on HD so if it fails so what - reinstall! Get the updates and back to PAR. Meanwhile I have the 2nd HD with ALL my data still intact. Of course I have 2 internal HD's and refuse to use an external just because I would have them piled up to the sky in the matter of months.

To make matters easier I just want to use an 80 GB HD for the OS and a 750 GB HD for necessay files/media/etc.. to copy or delete at will on whatever media I want.

Problem is I haven't the slightest clue what RAID is (redundant array of independent disks) besides what the acronym says. I don't know how it works, or how to configure it with 2 separate internal HDs or if I should connect my DVD-RW drive to it??? RAID 1,2,3,4,5 etc are meaningless to me I don't know if my mobo would accept that. How do you find that out? Is there separate software needed for RAID? Please someone give me an in-depth explanation what the heck this is, how it works, recommendations etc, or send me the best link you can find that would simplify everything I am talking about. Sorry this is so long, but it's driving me mad because nobody within a 100 mile radius of me ever even heard of it or knows how to play around with it. This is necessary information I just have to know. Thanx guys-

RAID - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This will tell you the main types of raid array, raid0 is for performance it reads and write different information to multiple drive at same time instead of waiting for one drive, works speeds up benchmarks a bit but you will need to run them to notice a difference, and if one of your hard drives go down you need to wipe the drives and start from scratch, you have no chance of repairing the existing os or recovering files.

raid1 reads and wries the same information to two or more drives, if one drive fails the operating system and all the files are on the other drive, disconnect the broken drive disable raid and it will work normally.

jbod just bunch of disc connect multiple drives and they will show up as a single drive, one drive goes down not guaranteed your going to be able to recover info .

easy to set up if motherboard supports it, but it isnt a serious alterative to doing backups, info is backed up but if theres a problem with a drive unless its a complete failure the only way your going to find out is if the other drive goes and youve lost everything.

if you want your os on one drive and use second disc for storage just set up the drives normally you dont need a raid array, connect first drive install os, connect second drive initialise disc and format.

actually stands for inexpensive discs, and if they were inexpensive it would make sense, main reason for setting up a raid array is to learn how its done, then wipe drives and reinstall normally, do you still want to know how to set it up

Damn that was easier than I thought. Thanks again. I knew I was over-analyzing a bit. I need to smack myself for that one.