I have a Proliant ML350 G8 with two SAS raid arrays currently set up - thereby maxing the default P420i raid controller. I need to set up a large video dump space in addition to this existing set-up (for non backed up, non-critical, temporary storage).
I had planned to just add a 2TB SATA disk and plug it into the motherboard. However I it occurred to me the motherboard might have built-in mirror RAID support? Therefore I could use two SATA disks and have some semblance of redundancy.
Is this possible? Or would I need to get a cheap raid card? Any recommendations?
While I found no native hardware implementation on the ML 350, I did find an alternative. Windows Server and 7 supports disk mirroring at the kernel driver level. While not suitable for every task, it is fine for what I am planning.
Interestingly, and unlike hardware based controllers that I've seen, it also allows raid arrays to be set up on the partitions rather than using the entire disk.