creating a raid 1 set up for the first time

hey im configuring an older computer and im going to have a raid 1 set up in it to make sure some very important data doesnt get lost. since its going to be on an older computer im going to have to use a raid controller card. i was wondering has anybody used any of the following ones and if so could u give me some pointers on it. i havent bought one yet but its going to be one of the following ones and im ganna hook up 2 80 gig hard drives. i understand computers very well but i just havent ever done this before.

(Cables Unlimited Serial ATA 2-Port RAID card)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

(Sabrent Silicon Image Serial ATA 2-Port SATA RAID PCI Controller Host Card Adapter)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

(SABRENT Serial ATA (SATA) 1 External eSata port + 2 Internal Sata Port + 1 IDE 133 port RAID PCI Controller Card)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

(Sabrent Serial SATA II 3Gbps 2-Channel 4-Port RAID & SATA II PCI Express Host Controller Card)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

(Sabrent RAID Native Serial ATA (SATA-150) 4 Ports Low Profile PCI Controller Host Card Adapter)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

(Masscool XWT-RC018)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

(Masscool XWT-RC061)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

(Vantec SATA/eSATA II 3.0Gbps PCI Express Host Card)
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=1455

External NAS with RAID capability is also a decent option. I think a 500GB is $250 maybe less.

Simplest answer would be to read the product reviews for linked cards, three of them don't support RAID, one or two of the others have some very negative reviews which would put me off immediately.

All the cards listed are soft RAID, so setting-up RAID will depend on what OS you intend to use, XP will require the drivers on a floppy, Vista (probably) won't, for Linux you will need to know your way around dmraid or mdadm (depending on Distro).

This seems to be my favorite, though after you add drives can be upwards of $400 if you have to purchase both drives and want about 500GB or more of storage.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applica [...] &CatId=207

Raid 1 is for redundancy. It can be used as a primary first line of defense I guess against data loss, but you need to have something better as a permanent backup device.

The NAS storage devices a couple of people have mentioned are nice indeed, but once again they are not meant as a backup for critical data.
People see these and think they are for backups, THEY ARE NOT A BACKUP IN WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

I first hand have seen NAS's, in RAID 1, and RAID 5 fail to the point that the data could not be recovered. Well, it could have been, but would have cost in the neighborhood of $23K. That was about 3 years ago when a 5 drive NAS when belly up with about 220 gig of very, very important customer files stored on it that were not backed up yet. We went back to the client who fortunately had the files backed-up on their end, but how embarrassing a thing that is when part of your business is dependant on file storage and security? Needless to say we eventually lost the account when someone asked the question "why didn't you have these files backed up to a secure backup system and not simpley stored on a NAS?" It was a large account for our So-Cal office. I have learned very hard lessons this way, take my word for it.

If you are worried about critical data, going Raid 1 in not in your best interest.
If your PC needs to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even in the event of a drive failure, then Raid 1 is a viable option.

As mentioned, just buy a second external drive for cheap insurance, or my suggestion is a DVD burner to back up important files.
Anyway that is my personal experience and I'll never trust a RAIDed array of any kind for critical file backup.

@adamthepolak: jitpublisher was giving you some good advice.

If one of the networked computers were to be infected with a virus, then you could lose your important data. If some piece of software malfunctioned, you could also lose it. Inadvertent operator error or a malicious user could erase it. A fire in the building could destroy it...etc... The only way to protect yourself from these types of disasters is to have an EXTERNAL backup plan.

What raid-1 does is to speed up the recovery time from specificaly a hard drive failure to seconds instead of hours. HDD manufacturers talk of Mean time before failure on the order of a million hours. That is about 100 years. No doubt, that a hdd can fail much sooner, but you are spending effort, performance, and money to insure against one of the more unlikely causes of failure.

The best way to keep your hdd running is to keep it cool.