Upgrading my storage. Best method? Internal External?

[betacase]

My current HDD setup:

Internal:
2x Black Edition WD 640GB HDD SATA II
2x Blue Edition WD 640GB HDD SATA II
1x 200 GB IDE ATA 133 HDD

External:
1x WD My Book 1TB (SATA II drive inside)

So I was in the process of planning out my next storage upgrade, and I think I might go for a 1.5 or 2 tb HDD (internal). My computer case can only handle 5 HDDs so I'm going to remove the 200GB IDE HDD. Now I was thinking (I don't know if this is possible) that I could get a esata case and move the 1tb external from USB to esata. Also I might make the two Black Edition WD HDDs into a RAID (not mirrors but where it sees 2 drives as one).

So my questions are:

1. Can I move the SATA HDD inside my external to an esata case?
2. Can I buy an IDE to SATA adapter and put my old IDE drive in the USB WD My Book case?
3. Without losing any data make my 2 WD HDDS into a RAID? (One of them is boot, other is storage. My plan was to get the new 2tb hdd and clone the boot drive to one partition and put all the data from the storage drive on the 2nd partition and then format the two black edition ones and setup a RAID. Then copy the cloned boot part back to that RAID setup)
4. Whats the best way to move data to a RAID? Is it the way I wrote up in question three?
5. How much benefit will I notice from having my harddrives in RAID? (I have a ASUS P6T Mobo and it has some special RAID sata ports)

Thanks for reading!

 

[Paperdoc]

You say, "can only handle 5 HDDs". But have you considered the option of getting a small adapter kit that allows you to mount a standard 3½" hard drive in an unused 5¼" slot? Many machines have such slots with front access panels removable, but are not using them for any device. Leave the front cover in place, adapt the smaller drive to the space, and find power supply connectors (use a 2-from-1 adapter if necessary) and an unused SATA mobo port to connect.

But to your questions. First, can you put the SATA II drive in your existing WD MyBook in a different case with an eSATA connection to your computer? Yes. I assume you have (or can make) a proper eSATA connector or port. Just be sure the case you buy has an eSATA interface system to the computer (many come with more than one interface included) and an INTERNAL interface for a SATA II drive.

Adapter to mount the IDE drive in the MyBook case? I doubt it. Usually there's not enough extra space inside to allow for fitting the adapter between the SATA II connector and the IDE drive.

I'm not a fan of RAID0, so I won't comment other than to say you really should check out real-world recently-measured disk performance data relevant to this. I suspect you'll find that the blacks alone are VERY nearly as fast as a RIAD0 constructed from them for most applications. Balance that against the increased risk of total data loss with RAID0 arrays.

 

[betacase]

Thank you very much for your response Paperdoc.

Does anyone else have any input?

Thanks!