Hello

So I am wanting to setup a RAID 1 (2 disks only) system, and I am wondering a couple of things. First, would it be fine to use my onboard controller? This is a data storage only setup as the OS is run from an SSD. I have heard onboard can be resource intensive but then I would need a PCI card I was hoping to avoid. Second, will my RAID 1 array move to another computer when the time for upgrade arrives or will the array be locked to my system?

Don't use the on-borad if you can avoid it. If Linux can see the two disks, where is the PCI requirement coming from ?.

Start here, and page down to see the comments on "fake raid".

Ugh okay yea then I will look at getting a raid card. any ideas of good ones? I see some on newegg in the 20-50 range that go into pci.

I was thinking this one:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-072-_-Product

I use software RAID (mdadm or LVM or btrfs) - others will have more relevant hardware recommendations.

Ah okay. So you just let linux handle the raid itself? I thought about that but wouldnt that be more of a performance hit?

If you've never used RAID before, likely you won't notice any performance hit from Linux software (MD) RAID. I've been using it on my primary PC too long to remember, probably at least a decade.

I definitely recommend implementing RAID et al using hardware that is soup-to-nuts expressly designed for that purpose.

Yes, you will pay more for it. But your data is worth it.

The performance hit with software RAID is only for arrays that have to do a lot of calculations, namely parity RAID (5, 6, 50, 60). With a simple mirror there's very very little computational overhead, so the performance difference between software and hardware RAID will be essentially zero. A big powerful hardware RAID card is 100% a waste of money for a mirrored array IMO.

Those aren't RAID cards. Those are glorified PCIe to SATA bridges, you'll still be doing software RAID with one of those. Even the ones that claim RAID are just fakeRAID. Essentially they have their own firmware that you can configure to tell the BIOS an array is attached, but your CPU still does all of the work. From a performance standpoint they're no better than software RAID, from a reliability standpoint they're worse than both software and hardware RAID. They really are the worst of both worlds.

An actual hardware RAID card will be $300+ new. See:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-111-_-Product

I prefer to "throw hardware at it." For example, a box that provides me with several hot-swappable disk-drive assemblies populated with high-quality drives. Redundant power-supplies with built-in line filtering. And, everything done in hardware.

"If I'm gonna do RAID, I'm gonna do it right."

Enterprise still uses full hardware raid a lot. It isn't cheap either.

I think the OP has a lower end fake raid controller that even if it did work in linux won't provide a common way to replicate to different hardware or kernels.

Fake raid is almost every raid controller below $150 as an example.

I would use the drives in a standard port or in standard settings. Then consider using any of a number of ways to maintain. Software raid or software raid on LVM is very common. ZFS and BtRFS may be considered too.

I vote for LVM mirroring. It do less resyncing.
Redundant disks without MDRAID

I have used both hardware raid and raid in software. I found portability irrelevant, you always end up needing backups anyway so leverage those backups.
I also found that the difference between software and hardware raid was only significant on underpowered servers. If you are using a commodity home desktop machine you may see a difference, but if you have a server class machine it will be insignificant.
The difference between rotational and SSD drives will be FAR more significant.