Windows 7 - Fresh Install

I like my current system setup with Vista, Raid 5, backup, etc. But it's gotten a bit cumbersome and bogged down. Time to do a fresh install of the OS. BUT, this time, I got my hands on a copy of Windows 7 Professional x64. This should be an interesting test.

I have:
-4x 650G HD
-1x 1.5TB
-1x External SATA doc
-1x 30GB SSD
-MB with 6 SATA points

I am a big fan of RAID 5. I have had enough HDs fail that I love having the rundancy for my tools. I haven't found a need for more than 1.3TB yet ;-)

My proposal:
-3 650GB Hard Drives set up as Raid 5 (sata ports 0,1,2)
-1 1.5TB Hard drive set up for backup (File and OS) (sata port3)
-30G SSD set up for swap space/TempFiles/Pagefile


Rig is mostly for video/Photo storage and edit. (Gigabye x48 board, Q9630 overclocked to 3.2Ghz, ATI's 4870 video)


Tj

+1 to rand_79. The SSD will give you better bang for the buck if the OS is on it, and if you have four 650GB drives and don't need more than 1.3TB of space on the redundant volume then RAID 0+1 is a better all-round option than RAID-5. RAID-5 has very poor write performance and very poor performance when you loose a disk, RAID 0+1 doesn't suffer at all from those problems.