professional advice (Score 1)

My job is is a professional raid engineer. "Burned by a not-so-cheap, dedicated RAID controller" -please explain, usually people are burnt by software raid, because they think its true raid and it isn't. All motherboard raid and even cheap raid cards are software raid. Cheap software cards often only contain one chip, same as found on motherboard raid, so don't buy one if you already have it on your motherboard. Avoid.They are NO GOOD. Trust me. If a drive fails you'll be lucky to keep your data. You're better off using discreet drives and copying date between them than software raid. RAID !- backup as other posters have stated. Good hardware raid such as the 9650se series 3ware or lst 87** series cards are good and will protect data but expensive for the home user. Use single fast drive for os, and proper raid card for your data, if you can afford it. hope this helps.