[TriLUG] raid cards

[Wing D Lizard]

I want to add a raid-1 to a server ( supermicro x5dal).  Since the
motherboard doesn't support hw raid, I'm looking at pci sata
cards.

Intrex has a couple:

   CON-SATAR - sil3112a chipset
   CON-TX2300 - promice fastrack tx2300 ( SATA II??)

has anybody tried either of these?  Any problems?

Can you boot from a sata drive with these cards?

Is there any reason to stay away from fc3/4?  CentOS?

The server is a LAMP server, supporting an accounting app
(ARIA), and a few odds and ends  ( phplive, etc).

brett