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PS My favourite HW raid issues: when your raid card goes titsup - how much are they? Do they even make those Adaptec raid cards you bought 4 years ago? Are the new ones compatible? What happens if you can't get a disk that's *exactly* the same anymore?


So it looks like my decision is quite a simple one....

Option 1 - Linux Software RAID 5: Need to learn how to use Linux at a level that allows me to recover if the worst happens, and also learn how to use Linux to actually get the thing going in the first place

Option 2 - Hardware RAID 5: Easier to set up and maintain, but if I get a card failure I could loose everything, but the data is still on the drives. A possible solution to this problem could be to buy 2 identical cards from eBay if I can find them cheap enough, so in that event all I do is swap to my back up card and away I go?

I would like to try Hardware RAID and FreeNAS as I still get to boot from USB Stick then. I think I will hunt down an old card and until I find one read your Wiki (looks great BTW!) and give software a go.

Lots of good advice and pointers here, thanks all for your help, keep 'em coming...

Cheers

Cris.