HDD - RAID - multiple issues - urgent attention

[sunandoghosh]

Respected nerds, techs, geeks and dear fellow members

I am having presently one hard disk drive seagate of 80 GB...

I am about to buy a hard disk tommorow....

In this contect can anyone plz clarify my following doubts...

A. I have heard that we can set up two HDD with RAID connection for striping and mirroring (I dont know what these means)...

((a)) Do i need to buy the second hard disk also of size 80 GB so that i can set up RAID connection with my previous hard disk of 80 GB...???

Or is it that i can purchase 200 GB (say) of HDD tommorow and with my previous 80 GB...I can still set up RAID Connection...????????

I mean is it mandatory that both HDDs be of same size for setting up RAID connection...????

() Also to set up RAID connection is it necessary that both hard disk should be from same company....?????

Or can i have say one seagate HDD set up with say another samsung HDD in RAID...?????

((c)) Can we have three hard disk drives and still set RAID connection....????

Or is it only restricted to two HDD...????

() what exactly is RAID connection and what benefits it offers....?????????

((e)) Can i still create drive image of my hard disk after setting up RAID connection......????????????????

Now as my computer and technical knowledge is very very limited (as i am a hardcore finance guy), my best and only recourse are wonderful forums like the one where i am posting right now. Its really great to have advice and suggestion of knowledgeable people here who do not have any self interest and are very helping in nature. So again I am daring to ask a few queries (infact more than few) and again hope that u people will really really help me out as u have always helped me in the past.

Thanks from deepest core of my heart for taking so much time effort and patience in READING and possibly replying...Its truly really and geniuenly appreciated....

And yes if anyone would like to add anything or say something else or suggest something better which i may be missing plz feel free to do so...

best regards

sunando

sunandoghosh at rediffmail dot com

 

[smit3413]

That was a mouthfull man...
ummm, you can set up hdd's on raid if you buy a pci card or if you already have it on your motherboard.
you can get the pci card on Newegg.com and there will be instructions on how to do it w/ the pci card.
I'm not sure about the different sizes of hard drives... i believe it doesn't matter at all. don't quote me on that though - i've always used the same size disks so I can't really comment too much on that subject.
yes, i'm a newbie but just to this site so don't think down upon my advise.

 

[zoomtm]

raid can be used with atleast two disks. they have to be the same speed and same cache but not same size or brand. mirroring is just using the other harddrive to mirror the other one..so if one harddrive fails the exact same thing will be on the other drive. stripping is using two or more harddrives to be created into one virtually, so say you have 2 80gb harddrives on raid stripping, they will now show up as one 160gb harddrive with double the speed of one.