Hard drive options for Asus A8V Deluxe based system?

[GingerNinja.net]

Hello and thanks for reading this!

If you were following my "RAID or not to RAID" thread before, you will know that I am in the process of building my new PC and have manged to narrow my hard-drive options down to two options, one built around two RAID arrays and the other between a RAID array and single drives.
My mobo of choice is the Asus A8V Deluxe which has 4 SATA ports and the Program Files RAID array will be going on the Southbridge which is the faster of the two RAID controllers.

[myth]

umm. I would put windows on 2 raptors raid 0, and all my docs on a second drive... I see no reason why I would want to put my programs on a 3rd drive... Also never store you docs with windows! When windows fail I dont want to have to retrive them!

[menthel]

2x raptors in raid 0 for windows/progs and 2x other drives in raid 1 for documents and other precious things- if you have money to burn, or just a 74gb raptor and a big hdd would be fine. I don't think you would notice that much speed differecnce in every day use.

[myth]

2x raptors in raid 0 for windows/progs and 2x other drives in raid 1 for documents and other precious things- if you have money to burn, or just a 74gb raptor and a big hdd would be fine. I don't think you would notice that much speed differecnce in every day use.

but you voted for "Windows on 1 * 36GB Raptor, Documents on 1 * 80GB 7K20, and Program Files on 2 * 160GB 7K250 (RAID 0)"

[skattrd]

Wheres the "none of the above" option

[menthel]

And then i thought about it, ok!

[turkster]

Forget the RAID 0.
At least that is what I would probably do. After reading articles (some of which were linked in your other thread) and my own experience I have come to the conclusion that it is more trouble than it is worth. I have two WD Caviar 8MB cache drives in a RAID 0 array and tbh I dnt notice any improvement over just a single one. An i am constantly worried about failure of the array/drives etc .

Just get a Raptor for windows/program files and something big for documents etc .

[GingerNinja.net]

Just to clarify - the reason I haven't listed Raptors is that I cannot afford them as my budget is quite tight and I have already purchased a 3800+ and XGX 6800 GT (damn that 25% off voucher!!!)

[menthel]

The have a look at the maxtor diamondmax 10's- sata hdd with larger caches, supposed to be very fast indeed.

[GingerNinja.net]

The have a look at the maxtor diamondmax 10's- sata hdd with larger caches, supposed to be very fast indeed.

....and costing something like £160 each! Ouch!

[menthel]

But that is for a 300gb drive! You get what you pay for.

[GingerNinja.net]

OK, how would you incorporate that into my proposed set-up? Would you RAID or would you go for a single Raptor and this single drive?

[menthel]

2 single drives, not sure there is really much to gain from raid at present.

[myth]

2 single drives, not sure there is really much to gain from raid at present.

2 x 36 gigers raid 0, 2 160 gig seagate sata drives raid 1 But you most likly cant afourd that...