text: Well, RAID systems are good for a few things and all have their stengths in the particular configuration. \n\n1. Redundentcy: if you want to have a relaiable hardware system to avoid data loss through hard-drive failure, use a RAID 1, 5, 1+0 (mirrored then striped) or 0+1 (striped then mirrored)\n\n2. READ / WRITE: when you stirpe a hard-drive (make two or more hard-drives join together as one) you actually double the read/write speed.. so a 15K rpm drive becomes 30k with a second hard-drive of equal speed.  Use RAID 0 for read/write spped. \n\n3. MASS STORAGE: prety much any raid other then 1 (mirrored drives) will give you more storage room.. \n\nSo now ask yourself the following questions; \nThough you are not affiliated with a studio, do you need the read/write speed for fast render farms?  Do you need expendable storage? Do you need a large storage space for your work? \n\nI would say that if you don't have a very high-volume render farm, a RAID 5 can be an all-round robust and flexible solution for you.  You will gain read/write speed with the proper RAID card, and get the best storage and redundancy for the buck!\n\n\nGood luck! \n\n- Eyal.