am in the process of a new build..my last one as its an expensive hobby...
have ordered a 1000gb hitachi ultra star and already have 2 150gb raptors.

1st question..
is it best to have opperating system ie vista premium 64bit loaded to the raptors or the 1t drive?

2nd question is it possible to settup a raid array without a floppy drive?
the mobo i will be using is a Asus P5E3 Premium WiFi, S775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1333/1600/1800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

and if it is better to have op system on raptors in a possible raid configuration is it best to go for the mirrored array 0+1 i think.

i have a lot of games, video files and music which is reason why i need a large storage drive btw.

Hello Bornslippy,

Firstly...

I am guessing you want the best performance possible and aren't quite concerned with backing your OS and programs up since you have the 1 terabyte drive specifically for storage. If you are concerned with speed alone, then you will want to set up a Striped Array (RAID 0) on your Raptor set. That will get you the best performance for gaming and general computing.

If you are concerned with data redundancy, then you will want to do Mirroring (RAID 1). But that doesn't really help in your situation since your storage drive is the other single Hitachi drive. You would really want to have a second one to have large storage and backup capability.

If you had 4 identical Raptor or Hitachi drives, then you could do 0 +1, but it's still not as good as regular RAID 0 for performance, but you will at least have data redundancy.

Second...

In my opinion, the best way to set it all up will be to do a Striped Array on the Raptor set and put your OS and all your programs on that drive. Then keep all your music, movies, documents, etc. on the Hitachi. That will give you the best performance and your data will be stored on a separate drive in case your array fails. Keep in mind you will only have one copy of your data on the Hitachi drive so you might want to burn your most important stuff to DVDs.....or buy another Hitachi and have a Mirrored set.

Third...

Setting up your RAID array should be done entirely from your BIOS, or the RAID setup will have it's own separate BIOS. If your motherboard specifically calls for a floppy drive to do the setup for some reason, then my guess would be you have to have a floppy drive. Each motherboard will have its own way to set up RAID, so your manual should have a clear explanation on how to do it. Especially if it's an ASUS.

Hope that helps!