New to Raid and need some help!

[crbriand11]

Hi, I have the following HDD's and will likely set up in an external enclosure;

2x WD Caviar Green 1.5Tb (7200rpm)
2x WD Caviar Black 750GB
1x Seagate 7200.11 250GB

What kind of Raid Configuration would work best? I would like to use the Green's for data, and the blacks for performance. I would love to use the greens as data and backup, but, one is already nearly full. is there a way to give me data safety but still be able to use both drives?

I'm not all that computer savy, but I'm good with directions or advice.

I have a giant movie collection that I want to get out of the living room, so I'll be backing it up to these drives. I play movies and games on a 42" 550 series Samsung LCD.

Any direction would be great and very appreciated!!!

My system;

Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
EVGA 780i
E8400 C2Duo (O'clocked to 3.6)
8gb SLI OCZ ram
2x Zotac 8800gt AMP SLI
2x WD Green 1.5Tb (7200rpm)
2x WD Black 750GB
1x Seagate 7200.11 250GB

 

[saint19]

I configured the disk in this arrays:

1- 2x750GB in RAID 0, for performance.

2- 2x750GB in RAID 0, with the 2x1.TB in RAID 5, for performance and fault tolerance

3- 1x250GB could be the O.S. disk, or a backup disk and install the O.S. in a partition on the array.

 

[crbriand]

I think the plan will be, 1.5's in RAID 5 like you said but I think I am going to be using one of the 750's almost 24/7, should I keep them sepearate and not use RAID 0?
Use one of the 750 Blacks's for the OS/Games, and the other for constant read/write? The plan would be to transfer work from the 750 to the 1.5's. I think the WD blacks are fast enough that I don't really need to RAID 0 them.

Thanks for the input!!

 

[saint19]

For a RAID 5 you need as min 3 HDD, it's why I say what 2x750GB in RAID 0 is a 1.5TB. with this, and the other two 1.5TB you can do the RAID 5.