Hi Alex,

UPDATE: From the link it looks like I am restricted to RAID (mirroring) since I will have only 2 drives for RAIDing.

I spent most time looking at ASUS for AMD processors. Did take a brief look at a few others, and tried reading several things at Tom's Hardware but no joy.

As regards the wanted RAID 1+0 and a separate drive... this is the main thing that is styming. I can't tell for sure if any RAID capability is in addition to or in place of 'normal'. Sometimes it seems like instead of, other times in addition to.
What I *hope* is that I can use a RAID connection pair for the RAID 2 drives, then a separate regular SATA connector for the other drive. And regular old ATA connectors for DVD, etc.

Thanks... and I will check out that link.
cheers



>>I will soon be replacing my PC.
>>After years of nary-a-problem with HDs, 2 years ago I had 3 'go' in the space of 10 months even when the system was attached to UPS.
>>So this has me 'sensitive' to HD failure.
>>
>>My plan, if it is realizable, is to configure a system with a pair of large capacity 7200 rpm SATA HDs as RAID 0+1 for the C: drive and a single (i.e. non-RAID) 72GB 10,000 rpm SATA HD as my data drive (D:). I would use the RAID to backup my data on the D: drive.
>>I read 'specs' on motherboard sites but cannot tell if the above is configurable, especially given that there would also be a DVD-+R/RW and a diskette drive in the mix.
>
>Jim
>
>What motherboards are you considering buying? I'm asking because some manufacturers do only RAID 0 and RAID 1 instead of RAID 0+1.
>
>As a reply to your question, I don't think you can do it as you say, In RAID 0+1 you need to have the same number of drives for both arrays. Check the following link: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/mult.htm (random google link I liked).
>
>Hope this helps.