Asus P5W DH Deluxe EZ-Raid / Ez-Backup Setup or not ?

[louno]

Hi guys,
I just received my new 1tb WD hard drive, so now I am getting ready to clean my computer and install win7 on a brand new freshly formated disk

I'd like to get some advices on how to setup my hard drives, here is what i have :

1 x Western Digital WD2500JS ATA 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb ( 3 year old )
1 x Western Digital WD2500KS ATA 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb ( 3 year old )
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB SATA2 7200RPM 4.2MS 32MB Cache ( New )

I think I should install Win7 on the new WD 1tb drive, split it into 2 equal partitions.

Then for the 2 other drives I thought about 2 options :
A) I could try to set them up in raid 1 and use that storage space for my work data. I am a graphic designer and work from home so I need my data to be safe, since i do a lot of photoshop sometimes in very large files so it helps to have have faster loading space...
B) Alternatively if using those drives for work data is not a good ideal because of the considerations I will mention bellow, I could always use those 2 drives for downloads videos music and games either in raid 1 or just as independant regular drives.

Things to Consider :

1. I do not want to spend for a raid controller... My motherboard ( P5W DH Deluxe ) has a raid hardware feature... Not sure exactly how it works but there is a feature called EZ-Backup or EZ-Raid which would allow me to setup my 2 x 250gb drives in raid 1. I know that sometimes built-in hardware features in motherboards arent nearly as good as stand alone dedicated hardware parts, like a real raid controler... So I am wondering if this is a good ideal ? If i use the raid 1 drives for my work data it has to be fairly safe, or at least safer than using a stand alone regular drive.

2. I know that usually you are supposed to have 2 identical drives to do raid, my 2 drives are almost the same the only difference it seems is that WD2500JS as 8mb of cache instead of 16MB on the WD2500KS. Would that be an issue ?

3. IF my drives are in raid 1 on my P5W DH Deluxe, but one day I buy a new computer which doesnt have a built in raid feature, would that be an issue ? will I be able to plug in the drives normally as stand alone drives to retrieve the data ?

4. IF one of the 2 drives in raid fails, do i have to put in another drive in order to be able to access the data ? Will I be able to simply unplug the raid connector and plug in the regular sata plug and use the drive normally as a stand alone drive to get access to my data and transfer it to my 1tb drive ?


Thanks for the help guys, have a great new year.

 

[bandit385]

Have you found any answers to your questions? (especially 3 and 4). I am considering doing the same. I have a P5Q deluxe mb and want to add two (2) - 2 TB hard drives for data storage using the EZ-Backup feature. Initially, I wanted to add the hard drives to an external hard drive enclosure using the e-SATA port, but it looks like the e-SATA multi-port feature does not work for the chipset as originally stated. The EZ- Backup appears to be an alternative, but another question I have is is there a maximum limit for the size of the hard drive? As stated, I would like to use 2 - 2 TB hard drives.