Echo: when using Win 7, set all SATA Port Modes to AHCI. You do NOT need to set IDE (which reduces the drive's abilities in a few places). You do NOT want RAID if you don't understand the various versions of it, their uses and weaknesses.
RAID requires more than one HDD unit. BUT you do NOT need RAID to use multiple drives as separate storage devices - normal operations can do that.
You are familiar with IDE, but not SATA. IDE can support up to 2 devices each port / cable, and so the devices need unique identifiers. The system was to use jumpers on pins to identify each as either a Master or a Slave of that one port. SATA uses only ONE device per port, so there are NO Master and Slave settings. Although some SATA units do have jumper pins on them, they are for different purposes entirely. As a general rule you should NOT change these - in a few cases setting them wrong can make your drive look dead!
Your first HDD should probably be attached to the first SATA port, probably labeled SATA_1. You'll probably have an optical drive, too, with SATA connections and it can hook up to the next one. (Technically, it is not supposed to matter which port you use.) If you add another SATA drive later, just plug it into a port not yet used.
On some mobos, there may be two slightly different groups of SATA ports. The first several are all controlled by the main mobo southbridge. Then there may be an additional group controlled by another mobo chip. For certain types of systems (like creating multi-disk RAID arrays) it can be important which group you connect a drive to. In some systems you MUST connect the drive you want to use as the boot device to the first group of ports controlled by the southbridge. But for most simple uses of additional HDD's, which port is not important.
In the old days of IDE systems, it was common that the boot device by default was the Master device on the Primary IDE port. Because of this people have fallen into a false habit of considering that device to be the "Master" of the entire machine, and all other drives to be "Slaves". NOT TRUE! "Master" and "Slave" are only different designators for two units that share one IDE port and cable. In the SATA world there is not such thing.
These days the question of which drive is the boot device is set up completely at the direction of the user by settings in the BIOS Setup screens. (There can even be more than one possible hard drive to boot from, each with their own OS's installed, but that's getting complicated.) All other drives are just non-bootable units able to handle any data.
In many cases the best Boot Priority Sequence to set is the optical drive comes first, then the HDD that you mount your OS on, and then no other option. That way if you place a bootable disk in the optical drive it can boot from there. But if you don't, the attempt to use that device will fail and immediately the machine will go to the second device (the HDD) and boot from it. (On my own machine, I have 3 devices in the sequence - my floppy drive is before the other two.)
For backup purposes you need to consider what is needed for reliable backup, which includes what are the dangers. Obviously you're protecting against data loss or corruption. But there are other issues also. The damage could come from an electrical spike or from malware, so having the backup device DISconnected from power and the computer can protect against that. You might have damage to the building where the computer is located, or a thief might steal your machine. That is why OFF-SITE backups are advised. For these kinds of reasons, an external HDD unit is best. You can make your backup and at least disconnect it from power AND the data interface cable. Ideally you carry it to an off-site storage place and only bring it back when needed. Very few people would consider a second INTERNAL HDD as a reliable way to do backups.
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