Well after my latest HD failure I have decided it is best to pursue a RAID solution. I have 3 250 GB SATA 150 drives that I would like to start the array with and will probably be adding a couple more later.
Right now the array will be going into a Athlon system with a nForce 2 mobo but soon (< 6 months) I will be moving to a newer 64 bit system with PCI-X slots. I would like to get a RAID card that supports both the older 33/66 PCI standard and the new PCI-X. I will be booting the OS off a separate, single drive and using the RAID array for dta storage and media playback. I don't really need a hardcore, heavy duty server-quality RAID card but I am looking for something pretty decent. 1) Any recommendations out there for cards? I was looking at the Highpoint RocketRaid ones and was fairly impressed. Any major differences between Highpoint, 3Ware, and Promise? 2) This array is going to be attached to a HTPC but I have not decided on the OS I will be using. Anything out there that supports Wintel, OSX, and Linux? Anyone know about RAID compatibilit with Knoppix or Mythpc? 3) Do I have to start with a set of blank drives? Right now 1 of the 3 drives has about 200GB of data on it which would not be easy to backup and get off the drive. 4) Do all the drives in the array have to be of the same size? -- Brian
