That's all well and good, but I have no clue what "thick provisioning" means.

Look - my RAID isn't any sort of ultra-speed server or performance-enhancing device. It's just a continuation of the home-made system I had many years ago - a place to store data and a mirroring arrangement for a degree of safety. It only serves 3 or 4 people. The controller is basicly an IDE controller with logic in its bios to do the mirroring (or striping). End of story.