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The Hardware RAID manages disks separately and independently from the host and allocates a single disk per RAID array to the host where a specially built RAID controller handles the drives like Intel and Dell Hardware RAID, it groups together entire disk drives into an array.
Thus the Hardware RAID is more expensive than the Software RAID due to the equipment (disks and controllers) needed but more reliable, and Many RAID controllers support disk hot swapping. It's used in a mission critical cluster or setup, heavy database driven dynamic site, and for the highest performance possible.
While the Software RAID implements the various RAID levels in the kernel disk code where no specialized hardware is needed just like Windows RAID and Linux RAID, and the host computer is responsible for the drives, it operates on a partition-by-partition, where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together to create a RAID partition.
Thus the Software RAID impacts the performance of the host and more complex than Hardware RAID. It's used in low cost solution, it's the best for RAID0 or RAID1, single server or workstation and perfect for home and small business users.
