should I be using RAID?

[nikko]

I'm looking for advice as to whether I would be better served running my hard drives in a RAID array. I really don't know much about RAID, so any advice would be welcome. I have 2 160 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM hard drives (i.e. they are both the same model). Anyway, the way I them set up now, I use one as my primary/boot drive, and I use the second one for storage. Every so often, I just manually copy and paste the folders I want backed up. I use my rig primarily for gaming. So given that info, what if any of the RAID set-ups would be best for me? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Sheriff]

RAID 1.5 if your setup will support it. If not then just Ghost/Copy periodically.

 

[GfW]

RAID 0 would split files across both hard drives. RAID 1 would basically eliminate your second hard drive as it would be used as a mirror of the first hard drive, resulting in a total of 160GB of useable hard drive.

My personal opinion is that RAID is highly over-rated for home use. Get a good disc image software (I use Acronis Trus Image but a lot of people use Norton Ghost) and create images to a separate partition on your hard drive.