newbie needs help with storage

[mltj74]

currently i have 2 internal 500GB hdd's in the same array from the factory and i would like to add some storage for movies music ect.. i know my motherboard has 4 sata ports is it just as easy as adding 2 more hdd's in a seperate array? currently i have 2 hitachi 500gb and 3 hitachi 1tb drives laying around i can use

i will take any advice out there thanks!!!

 

[vix]

That depends on the controller you're using. Some will allow you to add another array, others will not.

Why not just add the additional drives? If you're just storing files and have that much available storage space/drives, you could simply store a copy on multiple drives.

RAID is great, but it's not foolproof.

 

[mltj74]

as i said i dont know much about all this but someone told me if i just add the drives to my current array and a drive goes out i would be risking everything and i needed to seperate my arrays to prevent that

my controller is a Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) Ultra ATA Storage Controller

guess i shoud, start by saying what i am looking for i am looking to be able to share all the files on the drives with my network while making it easy to download files on the drives also if the drives that my OS is on go out i wont lose my files on the drives

 

[mltj74]

i cant find out if my comp is compatable with a port multiplier i know my board is a Dell Inc. 0YC523 it has 4 sata ports but dell says it only supports 2 drives.. i think they ment the case only holds 2 drives i think i can come off the sata2 port to the multiplier (if compatible)

coolgear sell a 5 port multiplier would this be a good option.. i mean i would be able to set it up to not cache anything on these drives so they could be disconnected without harm since they will be external right???