1. How do I go about rebuilding the RAID with ALL brand new disks (obviously no longer the same disks, but now newer spec larger disks) such that I don't lose not only the data but don't have to rebuild the whole machine again?
Your goal isnt clear. Can you please elaborate?
2. I'm better sticking with linux s'ware RAID rather than setting up a m'board BIOS supported RAID aren't I?
yes. although that stops you from booting raid-0 or raid-5. However if you want root as raid-0 or raid-5 - usually what you want is to make a small /boot partition and soft mirror it (making it bootable), then make / a raid-0 partition.
In any case, motherboard raid is called fake raid for a reason :)
3. It's been a while since I delved into h'ware etc. So SATA II disks will simply plug into, and function correctly, SATA plugs, yes or no? Or are we now at a stage where I also have to worry about whether or not the m'board will actually support the disks I want to put in?
Essentially its just plug and play. Dean -- http://fragfest.com.au -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
