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#11
In the past, whenever I've tested a software RAID setup, I was able to boot with just one drive present (assuming it was a mirror). Granted, I didn't use it that often, because software RAID is still useless in my book. I'd even go so far as to say RAID of any kind on a standard desktop workstation is mostly useless, and I wouldn't even bother doing it, and haven't since the 36 GB Raptors were originally released.
Given your example above, the failure wasn't in the fact you used hardware RAID...it was that you didn't have your data backed up. Software RAID is definitely not an advantage over hardware, and shouldn't be used in place of a true RAID controller. If you simply MUST run RAID on a non-server, stick with an Intel chipset, as you would have been able to move your array to a new system.