Removable Raid Controller Vs. Built in Motherboard Raid Controller
- RAID uses more than one hard disk drive to provide either fault tolerance or additional speed.
Traditionally, implementing RAID required the use of a dedicated hardware card, but many modern computers and servers now have this ability built into the motherboard. - A RAID controller integrated into a motherboard is likely to support a limited range of RAID configurations, while a dedicated controller card usually has advanced features such as the ability to add "hot spare" drives in the RAID array, meaning a spare drive can automatically take over if a drive fails.
A RAID array set up using a removable controller is also easier to move to another machine as the card can be moved complete with the drives. - Some operating systems have built-in features that allow you to set up basic RAID without the use of any hardware.