Quote Originally Posted by sequoia464 View Post
I mostly run office programs and more importantly - blueprint takeoff software - lots of file transfers and conversions. I currently have Windows 7 on two Intel 40's in raid 1 with 2 Intel 80 GB drives not raided for data and programs. Given what you said I'm leaning towards ditching the 40 gb Intels ( headed for some laptops) and getting one additional 80 gb Intel and run the 3 in a raid 5 setup. I backup every night but my data is crucial to my business - that's the thinking for the raid 5. Also have a couple of HDD's that are used for storage and backups in the system.

Does this seem logical or am I missing something here??
Raid5 (or raid6 or raid1 for that matter) are _never_ replacements for backups though! Keep that in mind! ALWAYS make backups of critical data, and store them in a different physical location. Backups are useless if your house burns to the ground and takes down both your PC and backups.

Raid1/5/6 is also useless if you accidentally delete an important file, or if a virus does so.