Software/Hardware RAID

Now that I got all those drives spinning, I'm eager to try out a RAID array. I reckon it's a better way to hedge against disk failures than backups on tape -- even 20/40 GB dds4 or DLT is not enough those days, and loading/rotating is tedious.

I heard an opinion that software RAID on Linux with SCSI is "almost" as good as a hardware controller. What is the experience here? Also, since I'm running LVM throughout, including the root partition, does RAID coexist well with LVM?

But if I go the way of the hardware controller, is it better to get a separate one, or one of those new cards from Adaptec which say they have a Host RAID 0/1 or some such?

I'm looking at a 3 drives RAID to begin with, perhaps 4.

Cheers,
Alexy Khrabrov :: www.setup.org :: Age Quod Agis