Most likely you will have to set up your raid. Most likely this will begin in the BIOS. You have to tell the board what drives you want to raid. Then there will be a secondary Raid BIOS you will need to enter right after POST. Also take note: it looks like the SATA 3 connectiors have 2 sets of 2 raid controllers.

Kudos on the Newegg plug :thumbsup: .. I totally agree and have custom-built all of our workstations and servers with parts from Newegg... just remember to ship hard drives via FedEx

Using an SSD for the OS is a great start... night and day from spinning disks. As for the data, I'd have to know what all you're using it for...

Is this a workstation on a network where the Revit models reside on a server? If so, the RAID for data-only on the workstation is a waste. If the RAID setup is to minimize down-time in the event of a disk failure, you'd be better off getting larger SSD's to mirror and just use a single drive for OS and data (Revit locals). If the server already has storage space for models and user data, there's no need to worry about the workstations really. Even without a deployment scheme in place it would only take 2 hours to replace an OS disk, reload, and have a user back up and running with all the software and whatnot that they need. You can also create a system image / repair disk that allows for a bare-metal restore of Windows 7 within a few minutes.

If this is a standalone system, then you're spot on except the SSD size. We started with 64GB SSD's for our Revit workstations and had to upgrade them to 128GB within a couple months due to a lack of space. After loading Windows, Office, some other small apps and the three versions of Revit Structure we use, there was about 5GB of space left. Do yourself a favor an opt for a larger OS drive.

Thanks, Scott & Alex.

This is a stand-alone box. I definitely cheaped out on the SSD size, no question, but only intend to load OS, Revit Suite, Photo & Office. All other BS apps will go on the disk drives - who cares? Data will be all of my created files, Rvt library, archives, vids, music, porn, etc...

Right on . It's always easy to upgrade later if you need the space... EASEUS Disk Copy is free and works perfectly. Take advantage of the backup tools in Windows to make your life easier when/if the SSD dies. Depending on which manufacturer, you may never even have that problem. I've had one in my laptop, which is practically always on and in use, for two years now, but I still take the time to refresh a system image every couple of months just in case.

On a standalone, this is ok. I would go with a 128gig SSD though. Even though you're installing on a different hard drive there will ALWAYS be data written to the drive with the OS on it.

The value of a RAID-1 mirror is purely data redundancy, at a slight cost in write performance, especially with a mobo based controller. For a small office I would tend to look for an external sata raid enclosure, with hot swappable drives. If you ever need to take advantage of the raid capability, this is a lot easier than opening the case to replace the drive. Unless you have a nice case with easily swapped drives. They have gotten a lot better since I was dealing with hardware. Not Mac Pro better, but better.

Also, I believe a RAID-1 pair must be identical drives, so to be able to replace one if it fails it may be worth buying the third drive now and putting it on a shelf. If a drive fails, you just slap the spare in and wait for the mirror to rebuild. Or if the controller supports a hot spare, you just install it and it only gets used if needed. Otherwise, if one fails you will probably have to run it as a standalone drive for a while, get a pair of new drives, RAID them then copy everything.

And if you are going to spend the money on raid for data redundancy, it is worth also looking into the question of off site backup. A mirrored pair protects you from a hard drive failure, but not from a fire, flood or burglary. Too often I have seen people think of RAID as backup. Off site backup is more important, data redundancy is a convenience.

Gordon

Good points to cond\sider, Gordon. I sort of get caught upp in the belief that I'd be bullet proof with the RAID. I might re-think my strategy (as I'm in the middle of assembling the box).

you could also buy a few hundred gigs of online backup and run a live syncing program (for instance: google docs with syncdocs). Works like a charm, with an added bonus: you'll always have access to your files.