Setting:

We are setting up a low usage server for an alfresco km/collaboration system

It is a low-end server with a pair of 1.5 TB disks we will be mirroring

The server comes with Intel's on-board 'fake raid/ low-end RAID' capability and for price reasons we have not selected a mainstream RAID card

Prior thoughts:

Searches on the net indicate no performance advantage, and possible performance disadvantages to the on-board RAID

I expect Intel & the Centos product to be rough equivalents in quality

I am leaning to software RAID for a simple reason of minimizing my administration & operational burden. If I need to perform repairs, obtain alerts it is the same administration toolset rather than a BIOS-based tool that seems to be accessible only through boot/ reboot.

Question:

Over a reasonable lifecycle are we better served going with the on-board or Centos' software RAID?

Any issue with booting from the RAID (obviously RAID 1)?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Dave