no. exact configuration depends on the maker. for example, the highpoint raid controller will allow up to four disks in the array: two as stripes, and an additional two working as mirrors thereof (a so-called raid 0+1 array). the promise only allows 2 disks in either a stripe or mirror array, although you can add another disk as a spare to take over should one fail.
to add 8 disks, one has to hook two up as a master and slave on each of the four ide channels available (and thereby forego any raid array).
a couple of other posters chided me for not understanding the differences between my approach, and that discussed in the article. to them i would say: "i am perfectly aware of the technological differences."
just as i am aware of the differences between my beater mercury, and a ferrari. however, i am also aware of their similarities, and i would propose that they have substantially more in common than they do differences.
p.s. anyone who says that ibm makes a quality harddrive has absolutely no clue about what the cognescenti are saying, e.g. http://www.tech-report.com/news_reply.x/2799/. similar threads and lamentations can be found easily everywhere on the net, i.e., storage review, slashdot, sharky's, ace, you name . even znet retracted their initial recommendation of the ibm deathstars.
me? oh, i only had three out of six fail (utterly, catastrophically) within the first three months. ibm harddrives quality? balderdash.
In my experience the drives IBM makes in the Thailand facility are excellent. I've had 8 of them and all of them have performed flawlessly. It's the ones from Czechoslovakia that seem to fail like clock-work, in my observation.
But it is a moot point, since they are selling their HD business unit to Hitachi.