I was once working with a friend of mine who's windows guy and I was introducing him to Linux solutions which would help him start his business without incurring the initial expense M$ would have warranted. I suggested that he use software RAID and he instantly panicked and rejected the idea stating exactly what many of you guys are saying. The reason for this post is that when many of you windows guys talk about software raid you forget to say, M$ software raid, in order to differentiate it from the other OS (yes there are others in the world, however small their numbers are in contrast to M$). Take any of the BSD's and you will have security and stability up the wazoo.
I've seen Linux SA recover data from RAID 0,1 failures and there are some slight advantages to running your RAID 1, in terms of recovery, on software RAID.
Here are some links and please make an effort to investigate what else exists in the world before you start to define it within the limits of your understanding. The same applies to me. Though I do not like windows I understand its place in the world but my point has to do with placing limits on what human beings can develop and if one thing can be said is that we don't know what the future holds; so let us conclude our statements with "as far as I know".
Many of the RAID card provide a form of pseudo RAID to which Linux is superior (yep! that's right). So unless you are going to be using some 3ware stuff or other similar card, I would suggest using Linux RAID.
I'm going to be building a central storage system with a capacity ranging between 1.8TB to 2.4TB and using 3ware cards so that I can lower the load on the CPU with a XFS filesystem (www.3ware.com/LInuxSell_0629.pdf),(pcbunn.cacr.caltech.edu/gae/3ware_raid_tests.htm),(http://terapix.iap.fr/cplt/oldSite/hard/cluster/raid_config.html)
and instead of iSCSI I will be using AOE (ATA Over Ethernet), that way I take away the added TCP/IP complexity. I already have a small testing system installed with four 40GB USB drives (yes! I did say USB; why? Because I can) running software RAID5 (which hasn't fallen or crapped out yet) on an old 900MHz Optiplex, with VLANs and XEN virtualization.
It seems that I may be having more fun than you guys; at least if that's your thing.
Where I consult, they have company wide mail and file servers running on Linux RAID.
Here are some links:
www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/C0303241/proc/papers/TUDT004.PDF
http://www.samag.com/ and search for raid.
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=terabyte+raid&num=100&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=Linux&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images
I hope that you guys give the other OS's a chance. I know that one big problem with Linux is good documentation and at time simply documentation but more people get involved the better things get for all of us. The competition will hopefully force microsoft to be more competitive.
