Which Raid is right for me?

[zerocase]

I am building a computer for my Father who wants it primarily for media use, recording TV, developing a large music library from his old vinyl’s ECT. I would hate to see him lose performance or DATA being that some tasks are time consuming. Another catch is he has never used a PC before. I have an Intel extreme series board that supports raid with a 2.4 core2. I’ve built many systems but only for self and basic PC knowledgeable friends. I however know very little about raid. I have 2 500gig WD 16MBcach for the machine as well as a choice between an old 160 WD 8 Cache and a newer 160 WD 16mb cache. Can anyone tell me which raid is right for a novice with this much storage and goals?

Or perhaps no raid at all?

 

[evongugg]

I would go for RAID 1. It will automatically back up the data in case one drive fails. Your father is probably not familiar with backing up and imaging, so it would be a good solution for him.

 

[rts_fan]

For an older first time user, I would have recommended a Mac. But, since it sounds like you already have some of the parts, RAID 1 is the way to go. To increase performance, RAID 10 combines RAID 0 and 1, but you will need 4 drives. Is this motherboard Intel Matrix Storage Manager complient? If it is, they have more options for you. They have lots of info at:Intel® Matrix Storage Technology

By all means, stay away from RAID 0 for anything that you want to keep. It's OK to use for a swap file or the like, but NOT for storage.