I put the following into my home computer about 7 months ago. It has worked flawlessly since then.
3 @ 250gb ide drives in a Raid 5. Resulted in 465gb of redundant drive D: in my computer. Nearly half a terabyte of redundant space in my home computer for under $900. If I need more space, I'll add a fourth 250gb drive to the array.
Disk drives are a lot cheaper now. I think this could be done for under $700 now. However there are larger eide/ata drives available now. Seagate has a 400gb drive. That'd be cool to have four of them in a home computer.
PROMISE FASTTRACK MODEL SX4000 RAID5 ATA
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-102-012&depa=0
1 @ $141.00
Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-309&depa=1
3 @ $145.00
Kingston ValueRam 168 Pin 256MB
1 @ $67.00