I want a hardware RAID 1 not for speed nor will it be deployed in a high performance server, but I want good protection of my data against harddisk failure and not having to reinstall the system in case of a failure is nice too.
Do keep in mind that mistakes, user errors, power losses, and other causes of *data* corruption are far more common than outright hardware disk failure. If you don't have one already, *first* make a good backup system, *then* do RAID-1.
I don't like software RAID - I've a much better feeling when the card itself handles the mirroring.
You'll find that software RAID-1 on Linux is very mature and well-tested and works well. If you still want a hardware RAID card, then go right ahead and get one... I've not used 3Ware with the 2.6 kernel yet but it's been so well supported in years past I'd have no real hesitation in buying their stuff again.
Cheers,
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.simpaticus.com
