Hardware vs software raid

[Mat Cantin]

> + Preston Hagar <prestonh at gmail.com>:
>> I have had too many headaches with hardware RAID failues (with PERC
>> cards, Areaca cards, 3ware cards, and Adaptec cards) to really go
>> through the stress anymore.  If I have one of those cards, I will
>> typically just use it as pass-through/JBOD and then do software RAID,
>> although that can even present a problem.
>
>>  Again though, most of my setups are small business, with a handful of
>> servers, not large setups, so I could see it being different for a large
>> business.
>

I also mostly deal with small businesses and I typically always go for  
a linux software RAID when I can. I've mostly used a hardware RAID  
card with pass-through as you mentioned, but from your comments it  
seems that you use something else if given the choice?

As a general question, when there aren't enough SATA ports on the  
motherboard, what hardware do people generally use when setting up a  
software RAID in a server?

matoc