Convert from On-board RAID to S/W RAID

I have a Linux server running on an Asus business-class MoBo (M3N78-VM) which has on-board support for RAID. Right now I have two 1-TB drives running in a RAID-1 mirror configuration. The problem is, I don't think I have any insight into the health of the array unless I reboot and watch the BIOS screen flash by. Plus, I'd like better capability to administer the array from a shell window. I've been reading that it's better to go with either kernel-based s/w RAID, or a real h/w solution using an add-on card. So, I am thinking about converting to the s/w RAID supported by the Linux kernel. If this is a bad idea, please jump in and let me know. Otherwise, I think this is where I am headed.

My question is, can I safely convert from my existing filesystems to a kernel-based RAID setup? Using the MoBo RAID, here is how my filesystems are presented:

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/dm-2             12096756   6566112   4916160  58% /
tmpfs                  1030836         0   1030836   0% /dev/shm
/dev/dm-1               101086     56300     39567  59% /boot
/dev/dm-4            960206996 469646532 490560464  49% /media

My thought was that I could simply reboot and enter the BIOS to disable RAID. Then, I am guessing that my filesystems would be presented as something like /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, and /dev/sda3. After that, I could configure the kernel-based RAID to mirror those filesystems over to the other 1-TB drive as something like /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2, and /dev/sdb3. Is this feasible? Or, do I have this all wrong? I would prefer not to lose all the data I have on my existing filesystems, particularly the one mounted as /media.

Thanks!
Larry

Hmm. I know a simple way would be if you happen to have a temporary drive that you could image the 1TB onto by using something similar to:

dd if=/dev/dm-4 of=/mnt/temp_backup/1tb_backup.img

Then take down the array, and create the new software RAID with mdadm, and then simply write the old image into the new array:

dd if=/mnt/temp_backup/1tb_backup.img of=/dev/md1

From what I've just read from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdadm#C...tion_to_RAID_5, it looks like you're going to have to move the data to another drive first, and that you can't just convert the data on the existing drive into the array.