Questions about HDDs and RAID

[loriis]

Hello.
I'm in the midst of my first build, and I'm a bit confused.
I'm only using one hard drive, and wondered what the best way to set it up would be, I have a mobo with RAID, and have read I could setup RAID 0 just on a single hdd, possibly adding more drives later (after OS install) to form a proper RAID 0 array. Is this correct? should I setup my single hdd in RAID 0? I am also aware of AHCI and IDE setups, which of these would provide the best performance?

One other question I have is regarding OEM vista, if I install my OEM copy at first boot on to my single HDD, but later want to remove this and upgrade to a different, larger HDD, can I format the original drive, remove it, insert the new HDD and reinstall the same copy of vista?? I'm aware OEM vista is tied to certain components, is the HDD one of them? would this mean I needed a new copy of vista?

Any advice much appreciated, Conrad.

[shaithis]

Just set it up as a single drive. Worry about RAID, if and when, you decide to go with it.

RIAD0 "stripes" the data over multiple drives, you would need a controller with some very fancy RAID migration features to add drives at a later date.

[Splash]

You require at least 2 disks to setup a RAID 0 array, and if you start with one disk and then add another you would need to backup, create the array and then restore to the array. AHCI gives some extra functionality, IDE will give you extra compatibility. I have my SATA controller set to RAID for my 2Tb storage array. As for your question regards OEM - replacing the hard disk is perfectly legitimate, and you will be able to reactivate fine.

[loriis]

Thanks for the replies guys, I'll set it up as a single AHCI drive and replace it later with RAID array.