400gigs, wow, i'd hate to back that up to disc, even if it was all dvdr.
that is why I am looking to figure out how to build a RAID, and then hopefully I can transfer it all over the LAN...
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Oh as for the question about how do I listen...
soundcard > DIY cat5 interconnects > modded JoLida 302a tube amplifier (matched quad of eh EL34 and pair of eh 12ax7 and pair of 12AT7) >> monster cable (heaviest gauge) > Klipsch Heresy loudspeakers.
all controlled via learning remote (which learns from an airboard)
foobar2000 is the media player of choice.
RAIDs are easy. You can go hardware or if you use Win2k server you can do it in the OS. Hardware is better if you can afford it.
So you have to reformat to do this, but basically for redundancy, you want to go RAID 5. That requires a minimum of 3 HDs of equal size and you subtract 1 HD's worth of space which gets used for overhead.
I've done it with SCSI RAID controllers, but there are also ATA and SATA RAID controllers that would be a lot more affordable.
In the BIOS of the raid controller you set up a logical volume, that is three or more (if using RAID level 5) drives. This logical volume is seen by the OS as one physical drive. With the right drivers and utilities from the controller mfgr you can manage it from Windows or Linux.
So you have these three (or more) drives, let's say 80 Gig for example. You get a logical volume at RAID 5 of 160 Gig and any one of the drives could fail and you lose nothing and the system stays up. If running a monitor utility it should let you know your RAID is degraded and what drive died. Then, when you can you swap the drive for a new one and tell the utility to sync up the new one and you're redundant again. Some conrtoller/drive combos allow hot-swapping, but that costs more. PM me if you want more specifics - I've done it a bunch.