I'm planning a new computer, and one requirement is high storage. the current idea is revolving around using a RAID0 array of 4*160 drives, but after digging through overclocker's products, I'm coming out a little confused.
nothing I could find there seems to be able to support > 2 SATA drives in RAID, they're all ATA 133:
1) is this just a limit to practical RAIDs that I wasn't aware of
2) what kinda performance hit would I expect from shifting from SATA drives to ATA 133?
3)If 4 drive SATA RAIDs are around (and not at silly prices), can anyone point me to somewhere I can get them from? (In the UK)
4) I'm also currently planning on using onboard RAID controllers, such as the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe "springdale" board, this shouldn't be any better/worse than grabbing a PCI controller should it?
5)Also, due to cash issues, I'm probably not going to be able to buy all the drives at once, probably get 2 or 3, then add the rest at a later date, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to expand an existing RAID, I'm guessing adding a new drive would require reformatting the whole array, as it's kinda imittating a single, very large drive, this right?
6) just out of habit, I try to do everything in powers of 2, but is there any disadvantage to using 3 drives, as opposed to 2/4 (I'm guessing with a good controller the answer's no)
7) and on a similar point, how about having different sized drives in the array (bearing in mind this is RAID0, so there's no mirroring going on).
8) finally, anyne know what sort of transfer speeds you're likely to get off a single RAID controller, or is this a massive variable based on # of drives & make on controller?
9)If the 4 drive option is unfeasible, going with 2*250 Maxtor SATAs is the other option, any comments?
Thanks for any help you guys can give, some of this may seem silly, but I wanna be sure exactly what to expect before I go spending a ton of cash.
-mark
