What are the differences between “hardware” and “software” RAID 1 configurations?
With a software-based RAID 1 volume, the hard disk drives use a standard drive contoller and a software utility provides the management of the drives in the volume. A RAID 1 volume that relies on hardware for management will have a physical controller (either as an expansion card or as a part of the motherboard) that provides for the mirroring of data across the hard drives in the volume.