Hi all! I would like to ask you Linux experts if you see any pitfalls in my setup with regards to my Linux RAID config. (Using SuSE 9.3 Pro) Here's what I have and what I did:

IDE Ports on motherboard:
hda - Western Digital 40G HD, Primary Master
\ hda1 - 1G Swap (swap)
\ hda2 - 39G / (Reiserfs)
hdb - Standard CDROM, Secondary Master

IDE ATA/100 PCI Card:
hdc - Western Digital 160G HD, Primary Master
hde - Western Digital 160G HD, Primary Master

RAID Config:
md0 - RAID 1 using hdc and hde, mounted to /home (Reiserfs)

My goal:
I want to create a system to store my family photos, mp3s, important docs, etc. with fault tolerance. (Kind of a safe storage bin for all my junk). So I installed the Linux file system on the 40G drive. I don't care if that drive dies and I lose the system... I only want to protect the photos, mp3s, etc... "/home" (RAID 1) is where I plan to keep those files.

Questions:
1) If the 40G drive dies, and the system will not boot, is there ANY security tied to the /home partition (RAID system) that will prevent me from installing Linux again on a new drive and accessing those files?
2) SuSE defaults a RAID mount to the /usr directory. What's the reasoning behind this? Is it better to store all your junk under /home, especially if you plan on opening Samba shares or FTP access?
3) Anything I'm missing?

Thanks for helping out a Linux rookie!

1) If the 40G drive dies, and the system will not boot, is there ANY security tied to the /home partition (RAID system) that will prevent me from installing Linux again on a new drive and accessing those files?
Well, root could always do whatever he pleases to it, so if you re-installed the OS and then mounted the raid volume, root could take ownership. The next answer is, It would depend on the security you set up. Is the world bit set to everyone can read/write/execute ?

2) SuSE defaults a RAID mount to the /usr directory. What's the reasoning behind this? Is it better to store all your junk under /home, especially if you plan on opening Samba shares or FTP access?

I'm guessing your saying that SusE automatically placed /usr in the mount point when you were installing SusE. The reason it did that isn't because it saw a raid volume. It was probably just the next mount point in Yast's dropdown box, or the most likely mountpoint after / to get mounted. You should mount the raid volume as /home since your going to be using it as a file server. Samba and the FTP daemons can all have their configs set to put files wherever you please, so if you install them, just make /home/samba and /home/ftp or something.

Awesome. Thanks for the advice!