[mothered]

RAID 1 is mirroring, that sacrifices storage space.

Definitely so- due to mirroring, It obviously requires twice as many drives.

Would you rate RAID 1 or RAID 5 better In read/write performance?

Can't say, since I haven't used anything other than RAID 0. To answer your question, from what I'm reading, RAID 5 has overtaken RAID 1 in performance, mainly due to more modern RAID controllers, and RAID 5's more widespread use these days.

Thanks for your reply, namely regarding the performance of RAID 5.

[Skullmeat]

Yea that's really cool! Id like to learn to get something going too, a closet build or something to learn from, I call em labrats. I still have a ways to go before that though. You gonna find yourself a small rack or something for all that?

I have a spare bookshelf was considering making into a rack type thingy...

This is why I need to keep an eye out of CL too, so I can pick up stuff on the cheap locally,

You can get used cisco gear fairly cheaply on ebay, especially end-of-life equipment, such as my 2911. If you have questions on what to get/where to start/configs, feel free to ask. I Enjoy talking about it.