questions re: moving to a RAID config

[Rashkae]

bill walton wrote:
> Greetings!  And apologies in advance if this is deemed to be off topic.
> I'm looking for info and how-to links.
> 
> Background:
> System is a 8.04 64-bit Ubuntu workstation install hosting VMware.  The
> box currently has (I think) a single 500GB drive installed which is set
> up as two 250GB partitions; one has Ubuntu/VMware installed on it and
> the other is empty.  I want to move to a RAID configuration using two
> (new) 500GB drives.
> 
> Questions:
> 1) Is there much chance of doing this other than via a fresh install of
> everything?
> 

There's 100% chance... install the new hard drives, create the raid
array, then follow the general instructions you find for moving your
ubuntu installation from one drive to the other.  The only real
difference is you will be using /dev/md? instead of /dev/sd?

> 2) Given that the hardware supports RAID, is there any advantage of
> using a software raid solution?
> 

Yes.  Unless you have *real* raid hardware (expensive), the so called
hardware supported raid (also affectionally called fake raid) is really
software raid that depends on BIOS settings for configuration.

By using Linux software raid, your array will be completely portable..
If you need to, feel free to remove them from the current system and
place the drives into any other Linux computer, and the array should
re-assemble, even if the drives are on different controllers.