Would 2 36gb 10k rpm raptors and one 74gb raptor fit in raid

RAID5, but you'll lose 38GB on the 74GB disk and end up with 72GB of storage. You'd be better off to use 2x36GB disks in RAID1 for redundancy and use the 72GB for storage (or buy another 74GB disk and setup a second RAID1).

ok well thing is, i already own 2 36gb raptors. there almost brand new cause i had to rma both of them over the summer cause they had different revisions and firmware, and did'nt work right in raid. so i have 2 that are really good, and i want reduntancy, however im on a budget and iv looked on ebay for a 3rd 36gb raptor and the ones that have the right firmware that would work with my recent ones

(actually 4 years old, but rma'd and now like new) are to expinsive,

i can't see spending 100bucks for one 36gb raptor when a 500gb black edition is just as fast and 500gb.

and suprisenly a 74gb raptor is cheaper. thats why i was wondering if i could use a 74gb raptor raided with my 2x 36gb raptors to get a raid 5 or raid somethin, for speed and reduntancy as my boot drive.

!. if i buy a 74gb raptor, would i be able to use it in raid5 with the 2x 36gb raptors, and partition the 74gb so i don't loose storage or speed? or would i have to buy what drive i can get 36gb 74gb (whats cheapest) and just waste the extra space.

2. would using a 76gb raptor in raid 5 with the 2 36gb raptors hurt the performance any?

3. will having 2x 36gb raptors and one 74gb raptor cause any problems with raid, or would it be easyer on the raid controller (ich9-10) to just have 3x 36gb raptors for raid 5.

4. will raid5 with 3x 36gb* raptors be faster then 2x 36gb raptors in raid0

my specs are

750w coolermaster real power pro
x58 gigabyte ds4
core i7 920
g-skill ddr3 1600

one thing thats bad about the older raptors (the first raptor that ever came out) i had to rma them because it was'nt compatible with the new one i bought off ebay a year ago. to run in raid.

upgraded from a pentium D, on a tight budget and rarly get upgrades once every 4-5 years, so im no looking to just buy all new hard drives, but to buy a used one off ebay for cheap as i can get one to last me until the raptors die.

1. I've never tried to use what's left out of a larger drive in a RAID, but it should work. If you need to be absolutely sure, then you'll have to test it yourself, google for it or contact Intel support.

2. Not at all. It's done regularly when an older disk has to be replaced.

3. It won't cause problems.

4. No, but it will be safer.

ok thanks. another thought to is, is there a type of raid that you can use 3 hard drives and get triple speed, plus parity/reduntancy?

im not to worried about storage for everything gets set to save on a larger storage drive, like my documents ect. but could use more speed and definatly would'nt mind having parity for boot drive

You need more than 3 drives if parity is required. RAID5 with 4 hard disks would somehow meet your requirements. A RAID10 configuration with 6 hard disks would be closer to what you want, i.e., the speed of 3 disks in a RAID0 configuration plus redundancy, but a 6 disks RAID10 still isn't as fast as 3 disks in RAID0.

ok thanks, i think i may just keep what i got i was luckily able to do a rma on 3gb of 3 x1333 ddr3 memory so i ordered 3x2gb ddr3 1600 6gb, hopefully disabling the page file will help with performance. i use vista and even with my core i7 system sometimes things can seem to be slugish, like the hard drive writes way to much to pagefile so normal operating with 8 windows open im using 2.2gb of page file i think that is having an impact on my system