Can RAID Systems Fail?
 

RAID undoubtedly offers more data protection than non-RAID disk systems.
However, the management of the disks and the data distribution across them
can be complex. Complex redundant systems can suffer failure, most often
not a fault of the technology used or the design of the array, but most
likely because of its failure to correctly apply these systems which leads
to a single point of failure causing disastrous data loss.

http://www.viperlair.com/articles/editorials/raid/

I have a simple raid 0 setup on my computer 3.0 g cpu 800 fsb @ 2x80 gig ata 133.
I have tried several times to do a repair install of my XP Pro OS but it won't not let me. Maybe I just do not know the proper procedures. TXS. Kolonel

that article is a little bit short in my humble opinion; and not really usefull;

avoid RAID 0 for any important data/OS/progs, only use it as scratch disk.

most secure setup would be RAID 1 for OS drives; RAID 0 for scratch drives; and RAID 5 for data drives

keep in mind that RAID doesn't cover power failure nor corruption on the drives.

you can also use raid 0+1 wich uses 4 disks, is fast and secure and the advantage to RAID5 is the better read speed.

uhm power failure = UPS

corruption of software is not RAID's job to correct/prevent :)

@HardFreak: RAID5 is more space for less money

not every person with a RAID setup has a UPS. I run a raid5 setup with XFS partitions, both very sensitive to power failure. I should get a UPS indeed. I also meant that your harddrives could have bad clusters, that's a hardware error RAID doesn't prevent

RAID5 offers the best read speeds fyi, write speeds are sometimes significantly lower because you have to calculate the parity checksum

uhm; if one of your HDD's has bad clusters then that HDD will be flagged by RAID 5 system as failing/failed. FYI

there's something as CRC you know;)

your comments about "power" are off-topic as RAID is not meant to prevent damage due to power failures...

could you like use raid 0+1, with 2 fast drives used as the raid +, and slower ones for the raid 1, kinda seems fast, cost effective, and secure

*obviously it should be raid 0 instead of raid+, but couldn't edit because of this being in the news section