There, I have a significant choice — to use the on-board RAID, or do it entirely in software (e.g. OpenMediaVault)?
If you use hardware RAID -- especially one built-in to a motherboard -- and the hardware dies, you're screwed. Using software RAID, like the LVM Raid Linux provides, makes your RAID configuration hardware independent allowing you to move your disks to another system as you want/need. If you decide to use HW RAID, get a well-known dedicated RAID card that you can replace more easily than the motherboard with built-in RAID.
Still, there is a lot to be said for some of the off-the-shelf home RAID boxes. I haven't researched them, but I know a friend like the Synology NAS boxes. Most of those types of solutions are really Linux systems, but whether it's really software or hardware, I don't know, so I don't know if you could pull the drives and use Linux to recover your data. That should be a standard question to ask vendors before purchasing, but I doubt many people consider it.
Software RAID (Score:5, Informative)
There, I have a significant choice — to use the on-board RAID, or do it entirely in software (e.g. OpenMediaVault)?
If you use hardware RAID -- especially one built-in to a motherboard -- and the hardware dies, you're screwed. Using software RAID, like the LVM Raid Linux provides, makes your RAID configuration hardware independent allowing you to move your disks to another system as you want/need. If you decide to use HW RAID, get a well-known dedicated RAID card that you can replace more easily than the motherboard with built-in RAID.
Re: (Score:2)
THIS!
Still, there is a lot to be said for some of the off-the-shelf home RAID boxes. I haven't researched them, but I know a friend like the Synology NAS boxes. Most of those types of solutions are really Linux systems, but whether it's really software or hardware, I don't know, so I don't know if you could pull the drives and use Linux to recover your data. That should be a standard question to ask vendors before purchasing, but I doubt many people consider it.
Re:Software RAID (Score:2)
Synology claims to use a proprietary RAID format, but, for the most part, you can use mdadm to manage them from any Linux box.