Best bang-for-buck drives for RAID 0 config?

[gowens]

I scanned the board and didn't see a similar question, so if I missed it, please forgive me.

I'm replacing an old PC (p4 2Ghz) with this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4030695&sku=A455-2810+J&AffiliateID=NKa3hZyYoHA-qwe9jEY5mq4RQ7M6XP1zOg

(AMD x2 5000 black; 4gb RAM, barebones kit with 2 SATA connectors and RAID support) and want to set up a RAID 0 config with the best bang for the buck drives.

Any thoughts on what brand(s) and sizes are the best? I'm guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 250-500gb per is the sweet spot for value.

For what it's worth I'm planning on using an external USB 2 250gb drive for backup.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

 

[smartel7070]

Well I would suggest a raid0 setup like the one I have which is 2 x 500gb seagate 7200.11 32mb cache. Not too noisy and very fast.

BTW very good idea to have a ext. hdd as a backup drive. That way your raid0 can fail at any time but you won't loose your data if you do regular backups !

 

[gowens]

thank you. what utility do you use for backups? can i use Acronis for backing up the drives to an external USB drive?

 

[gowens]

geez, those drives are quite a bit more than other 500gb drives...i'm looking for best bang-for-the-buck versus best performance. anything else that anyone can recommend?

 

[can007]

Those drives are VERY FAST!!! I own two of those, so I know its performance.

 

[smartel7070]

Are you in the US ? I just checked on Newegg and they are the same price as other 500gb hdd's, maybe 4,5$ more http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288.

And for backups I do them manually. I don't have that much data to backup anyways.

 

[gowens]

yes, i'm in the US. is there a big difference in SATA 3.0 (which the mobo supports) and other versions? also, is there significant performance dif'c between Seagate's 7200.11 drives and others that cost less?