Whether or not hardware RAID is better depends on the controller in question. The primary advantage to hardware RAID is that RAID management, R/W, logging is offloaded from the server hardware onto a hardware device. This is most beneficial when using parity-based RAID levels like RAID 5 and 6, or when there is intense I/O like when a drive is rebuilding or under regular operating I/O. One feature of SOME (but not all) hardware RAID controllers is the ability to use battery-backed write cache. Any heavy I/O should be running on a controller with battery-backed cache. The Intel RAID controller is NOT "hardware RAID". It uses system resources to manage RAID, does not have cache, and does not have logging capabilities for troubleshooting. There are no other RAID controllers (hardware or software) validated for the T30. That doesn't mean a controller wouldn't work, but I wouldn't count on it in this system where resources will be fairly limited. 
Hello everyone. I am needing a bit of help with a server PowerEdge T30 my bosses bought. I read that this model comes with software raid courtesy of intel rapid storage technology, from what I researched software raid is not as good as hardware raid so we are planning of buying a hardware raid controller but I would like to be sure if it is possible for this model of server to function with this kind of controler and which would you recommend, PERC or another one? In case it is not possible to install a hardware raid controler, how do I set up raid with the Intel software contraller? I looked everywhere and I did not find a good tutorial or guide. By the way the place i work for is small, is it a good idea to use raid? Thanks in advance.
PowerEdge T30 RAID