[Beowulf] Software Raid

[Paul]

I read in a post somewhere that it was not possible to use a Linux 
software RAID configuration for shared file storage in a cluster. I know 
that it is possible to use software RAID on individual compute nodes but 
the post stated that software RAID would not support properly support 
simultaneous accesses on a file server. Is this true?

Assuming that hardware RAID is required (or at least preferable) I was 
wondering if the built in RAID on some motherboards would be adequate or 
do we need to look into a dedicated piece of hardware. We will have 
about 10 - 12 cpus initially that will be connected with giganet 
network. We currently have about a terrabyte of storage space and are 
planning to mount it using NFS in a RAID 5 configuration. Our 
applications for now will be database intensive bioinformatics apps. I 
would be very interested in any comments. Thanks

Paul Mc Kenna