Asus A8N-E, uses an nForce chipset. I am not very pleased with it and might consider getting a new one. Has to be a socket 939 if I were to change....

what motherboard is it?

Cheers topshot_2k. I have been using automatic backups like you described. I was just wondering if there was an alternative seeing as I'm going to format the disks when I get Vista trhough...

Instead of asking rhetorical questions and trying to look clever, give me some answers or don't post at all...

why use it at all? i'd just set it for timed backups and use a 400gig or somehting as a backup drive then a small fast drive for the main drive

why RAID1??

Did you even read my question before answering?

Its all well and good saying software raid is shite BUT if you have data to protect its better than no raid at all.

Have you tried using it before? I used windows RAID software for a year on my server without any problems including recovering a HD failure.

Yes its not idea but its a bit like saying a Corsa is shite, save up and get a decent car

Software raid is shite as Russ says but if thats what you can do I think there may be one built into Windows XP? Not completely sure though

why do u want raid anyway? software raid is shite mate

The NVraid controller that came with my motherboard is shit. It's so shit I have given up with the whole idea and actually just turned off one of my HDD's and not bothered using it anymore. Basically the array would degrade, and fuck up all the time. It actually managed to delete the file system from both my disks and I ended up having to get the data recovered once. Bloody annoying when it's a measure you have taken to prevent data loss.

Is it possible to use a different software RAID controller? All I was using in the past was a RAID 1 setup with 2x 250gb SATA II WD Caviars. I'm not really looking for a hardware setup as it's a bit overkill for my needs.