First RAID using Sil3112A controller

[Krum]

I just bought an ASUS A7N8X deluxe mobo which comes with the Sil3112A Serial ATA RAID controller built in. Since it's there anyway, I figure why in the heck not use it. I've never set up a RAID before, and was wondering if anyone had used this configuration, and could tell me what pitfalls to avoid.
Also, it looks like you can only set up either a type 0 RAID (stripped) OR a type 1 RAID (mirrored) using only two serial ATA drives. Ideally, I'd like to set up a RAID using two or more drives to stripe and another to mirror but I don't know if that's possible without buying a controller card. The mobo has two serial ATA connectors leading to the controller so I was wondering if there was some way of creating some kind of master/slave type of config like you can with regular drives even though it doesn't mention this possibility in the documentation. I realise this may be considered a fairly ignorant question, but what the heck I'm new to this. Thanks!

[Idigguns]

It's not a bad question. I have two 36GB Raptors in RAID 0 on my A7N8X Deluxe. It's a very fast setup. No drawbacks that I'm aware of. At this point, there is no way to hook up more than the two SATA HDD's to the mobo. and I don't believe that SATA will ever go to the Master/Slave config like PATA. If you did get a controller card, and set up a RAID 0+1 array or RAID 5 array, it would be quite a bit more expensive. Also, while being faster than a single drive, it's not as fast as RAID 0. If you're going to set up this PC as a server, then go with the RAID 1. If you're just looking for some extra speed, and like pushing things to the extreme (like me) then go with the RAID 0 and then add another drive on your parrallel bus just for back-ups. Just make sure you do frequent back-ups. That's what I do.

[Steve R Jones]

"No drawbacks that I'm aware of." -> EXCEPT that if you loose one drive you loose both!

[Krum]

Thanks for the insights, guys!
I'm guessing that I can install another regular ultra DMA 133 HD on the primary IDE port and the RAID on the serial ATA ports and set the boot sequence for first booting from the RAID and then the IDE drive in the event of RAID failure. If I set up the RAID first, how do I back it up so that it will boot from the IDE drive in the event of emergency, e.g. copy the os etc to the backup drive?