Need some advise on RAIDing (5+0)

[kag]

Disks available
500GB (Data) (NTFS)
500GB (Data) (NTFS)
400GB (Data) (NTFS)
640GB (Data) (NTFS)
1TB (Clean) [A]

I'm planning to do RAID 0 on
500+500 [B]
400+640 [C]

And changing it to RAID 5+0
on A+B+C

It is possible to do it without losing any data at all? (Ignoring my additional 40GB on C)
Or is doing so not recommended in the first place at all.

If it is possible, which 5 or more bay NAS should i purchase?
I only need NFS and 10/100 Ethernet would be good if it has FTP and spin down on idle.

[kalniel]

Can you RAID non-identical drives?

[kag]

I haven't really done raid before, but i read from some places that they were able to do 0 or 5 with different brands, no idea about 5+0 according to them the performance will follow the slowest drive within the raid.

EDIT: I think it all depends on the controller.

[arthurleung]

You could probably try Intel MatrixRAID on the RAID5, then RAID0 with Windows dynamic disk.
Either way you have to clear up all the drives first, before you can start doing RAID. Perhaps borrow some 500~1TB drives from friend to store it for a couple of days?

Also, I think you're thinking of JBOD not RAID0. If you RAID0 400+640G you will get 800GB. If you JBOD you'll get 1040G as you expected.

If you RAID5 2x500+(400+640)+1T you'll get 2TB of space.
Why not just RAID5 all 5 disks, you will get 1.6TB RAID5 + 100G + 100G + 140G + 600GB which is about 2.5TB. The performance will be better this way as well.

[kag]

You could probably try Intel MatrixRAID on the RAID5, then RAID0 with Windows dynamic disk.
Either way you have to clear up all the drives first, before you can start doing RAID. Perhaps borrow some 500~1TB drives from friend to store it for a couple of days?

Also, I think you're thinking of JBOD not RAID0. If you RAID0 400+640G you will get 800GB. If you JBOD you'll get 1040G as you expected.

If you RAID5 2x500+(400+640)+1T you'll get 2TB of space.
Why not just RAID5 all 5 disks, you will get 1.6TB RAID5 + 100G + 100G + 140G + 600GB which is about 2.5TB. The performance will be better this way as well.

I can actually convert the left over from RAID into JBOD?

[arthurleung]

I can actually convert the left over from RAID into JBOD?

Yes, if you use software RAID like Intel MatrixRAID or Windows Dynamic Disk.
If you're planning to go for hardware RAID then it may not be possible.