Hello All,

I am building a storage system for myself. I have a 16 bay SATA chasis and right now I have

1 x 500GB SATA for booting 8 x 1.5TB for data. 3Ware 9500S-8 RAID card where these 8 drives above are connected to.

I am used to linux, but not in the RAID department. I have Windows experience too. What I am looking for is something that I can just let sit, be reliable and use for other items as well. (Like running test websites, Apache, MySQL, etc). This box is private on a Class-C subnet.

My thought is to at least consider Windows Server 2008. I especially like the potential for NON-GUI Mode.

Can Windows Server 2008 do a Software RAID 10 out of the box?

Software RAID is better performance and better in case the raid needs to be moved to another machine?

I just want to SCP files, so OpenSSH running on it?

Can one install the GUI, but not use it unless they get in a bind?

Is Windows a good idea or should I stick to a Linux Software RAID or FreeBSD + ZFS?