Hardware RAID vs Software RAID?

[Nocturnal]

I have an A8N32-SLI Deluxe. If I have a RAID setup in this computer, is that hardware or software RAID?

I thought as long as the drives were connected to an actual RAID controller either card or motherboard, that it was considered hardware RAID. Am I wrong?

 

[postmortemIA]

everything is done by driver, there's no specific controller that can perform RAID functions without relying on driver. It is software raid, also known in linux world as fakeRAID.

hardware RAID is rather expensive.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Every disk controller, whether it has RAID function or not, has a hardware part to it. The difference between hardware and software RAID solutions are how the parity calculations are done. A hardware RAID solution uses a dedicated processor to perform the function; a software RAID solution uses the CPU to calculate parity. This is especially useful in RAID 5 and RAID 6 arrays, as the calculations can hurt performance on software RAID solutions.

 

[JackMDS]

Software RAID needs an OS that supports it.

Hardware RAID is more independent. It might work with an OS that does not support software RAID.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Onboard raid on most motherboards is quasi-software raid, it doesn't generaly have a deticated raid processer and uses the CPU for the raid calc's, but its generaly tied to that board or raid controler and not really portable unlike true software raid w/ something like linux based software raid. Hardware raid cards havd a deticated Xor processers for raid parity calculations and generaly cost a lot more. Software raid on modern system can be faster than many deticated hardware solutions if you can afford the CPU use.

edit: storagereview.com is a good place to look for more Raid / storage info.