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[perkiset]

OK then... I have the machine physically running.

It has an option for me to build hardware raid right on the controller, looks reasonably strong. However, it appears that there is a lot of argument for windows based software raid - there are lots of upsides - the only real downside is the possibility of performance issues.

I'm leaning towards software because of what all I've read on the tubes, but would love a second(^10) opinion...

[nutballs]

what are you seeing as the pros and cons on both sides?

software you can ONLY do 0,1,5
hardware, you can do whatever they have built in.

the software perf hit is low, and for a document server like your doing, big deal.

the advantage in my opinion with software is that the drives are built upon the standard windows NTFS file systems. So, it will always be valid, even in a hardware failure and re-box.

in a hardware solution, you have to match the hardware in a failure, or at the very least, match the vendor and hope it works with new drivers and chips.

Not sure what the other reasons would be.

but frankly, your not talking about an high availability array, but a high redundancy array so who cares about speed hits. Thats why 6 would be best, but a 5+0 would be good as well. Not sure how to do 5+0 in software though. I was able to set up a 5 and a 0, but not sure how to get the 0 to mirror the 5's data.

[perkiset]

The tubes seem to say that software is easier on a failure, and more configurable. The biggest, most consistently listed benefit to a hardware RAID is speed, but better and better software has almost dulled that point to a spoon rather than a knife ... in some case, software beating hardware even on a head-to-head comparison.

I just wanted my buddies to say that software is not ghettoRAID and that I'll not be looked at down the noses of *real* admins

[nutballs]

nope not a real admin (not that I am one either ). They would just assume there was a reason that made sense to you.

a wannabe maybe. and it is a bit ghetto, in that you didnt spend 50000000000 dollars on it, it was free.

hell you wanna be ghetto you could do this:
http://n0tablog.wordpress.com/howtos/software-raid-6-on-openslug/
I have 2 of these NAS slugs. pretty cool little device. can install a full linux distro on it via some hacking.