RAID, journaling, and ASPs, oh my!

I'm looking for what is possible, what is desirable, and what is best
practices.

Currently I have 7 drives in the system unit, all in 1 Raid set. I only
have 1 ASP.

Part 1:
When I add the 8th drive into the system unit (making it full), it could be
either 1 Raid set of 8 drives, or (I think) 2 Raid sets of 4 drives each.
Or am I limited to 1 Raid set? If I have 1 Raid set of 8 drives, I can lose
only 1 drive before I'm toast, but I lose less space to the striping. If I
have 2 Raid sets of 4 drives each, I can lose 1 drive in each set before I'm
toast. These will all be in the system ASP (maybe - read on).


Part 2:
I also want to get into journaling. From what I read about journaling, it
is better for recovery purposes for journal receivers to be in a separate
ASP. So let's suppose I put 8 drives into the expansion unit. I want to
reserve some drives for ASP2 for journal receivers. There will be 1 2780
Raid card in the expansion unit. I assume that Raid sets either cannot (or
should not) cross ASP boundaries for recovery reasons. The possibilities
are . . . what? There's only 1 Raid card, does it support 2 Raid sets? Or
am I limited to 1 Raid set? The rest of these questions assume more than 1
Raid set. One possibility is 2 Raid sets of 4 drives each, the 2nd to be
ASP2 for journal receivers. But that seems like a lot of space for just
journal receivers. What else should I put in ASP2? Save files? If I put
anything other than journal receivers in ASP2, doesn't that complicate
backup?


Part 3:
If I CAN have more than 1 Raid set in the system unit, but canNOT have more
than 1 Raid set in the expansion unit, what's wrong with taking 4 drives in
the system unit, make them a RAID set, and put them in ASP2?

Thanks.


"My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading
into a waterfall of creative alternatives."
-Hedey Lamarr (that's Hedley!)