Software RAID1 for OS, necessary?

[pecker88]

I have 2 identical new Intel 545s 256GB SSD drives.

Should I use the built-in Intel software raid on my SuperMicro A1SRI-2358F motherboard to create a RAID1 mirror for the OS or is just 1 drive sufficient?

This will be a primary gateway at at remote office location, stability/up-time is important.

thanks!

[Jailer]

You'd be better off with a ZFS mirror. It's simple to set up during install.

[pecker88]

I mis-spoke in my OP, the mirror setup via the pfSense install is what I was referring to.
Would be installing 2.4 stable build.

[kpa]

Do not use the provided BIOS RAID configurator or any of the provided utilities for it. Instead use ZFS mirror as suggested, ZFS does poorly if it doesn't have a direct access to the disks used. In fact a configuration where ZFS is used on top of a software pseudo RAID defeats most of advantages ZFS offers.

[pecker88]

SuperMicro A1SRI-2358F + Chassis CSE-101i isn't really "made" for 2x HDs, but the HD bay does easily fit 2 SSD atop each other.
But, since I'm using external pwr supply, the mobo only has 1 male molex connector for HD pwr. So, I had to order female molex to 2x SATA power for the SSDs. Wasn't easy to find female molex to SATA power, but finally got 1 in today.

Got everything up and running with Auto Install (ZFS), very easy. Thanks for recommendations everyone.

 pool: pfSenseZFSpool
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h0m with 0 errors on Thu Dec  7 07:01:02 2017
config:

	NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	pfSenseZFSpool  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada0p3  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada1p3  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors