Using the Adaptec RAID adapter is a scary proposition. In the event of a
server failure the only way to ensure the integrity of your data is have
battery backed up cache. Otherwaise, any data that resides in cache that has
not yet commited to disk would be lost.
One big piece of advice is to try to avoid the temptation of using large
capacity ATA disk as the rebuild time would be lengthy and exposes you to
the potential of total data loss since you are running in degraded mode for
a longer period of time.
Try using external RAID as the levels of redundancy are way better


"Toto" wrote in message
...
I intend to build a small server for my (6 Win XP computers) home LAN, to
backup my Data (and store some original documents).

Adaptec 2410SA Serial ATA Raid card seems to be a nice choice in terms of
price : you can use 4 cheap disks in Raid 5 mode to "secure" a capacity of
3. If I understood correctly, if ONE disk crashes, it's quit easy to
"rebuilt" its content with the parity data. Specially if a 24/7 capacity
is
not that important...

I never built any Raid, so it's quite difficult for me to understand
wether
it's a good choice in terms of real security for my data : what happens if
there is a "general" crash of the server (accidental reboot, no more AC,
controler Card burning...). Will I loose ALL the data of the array ? Has
the system a capacity to recover at least a part of data ?

And is the Adaptec 2410SA reliable ? Hard AND soft ? More than the
(cheaper) Promise FastTrak S150 SX4 ? Should it be better (and easier to
build) to boot the PC from another disk (I've got some small capacity
disks
in my drawer...) and not from the Raid Array ?

Please help a newbie for a good choice...