AMD HDD Raid with SSD/cache?+other?

Asrock B550M Phantom Gaming 4 motherboard w/Ryzen5 4600(G?) I am turning into a simple win11/Ubuntu server. I am still setting it up. I put windows 11 on an NVME evo970, Then attached 4} 2TB HDD in raid 10. That part is done. Do I need to keep the Raidxpert2 software installed; or can it be deleted now that the creatie array is finished running. I did install the amd hardware raid drivers for sata only, not nvme. It it possible to use a small SSD to use as a cache for better speed instead of using the read/write caches’ on the HDD’s? I want to learn Ubuntu also. Should I run it in a VM or set up dual boot? Plan on using that PC for a HT/server/gaming on TV PC so I need complete control of it so I can plug the controllers into an old laptop while sitting on the couch to play game on the TV. Can I do that from win11 remote desktop (I’ve never used it) or will I need some other software? 32G installed memory, currently about 1/2 assigned to APU. I play older games mostly that a 4600 APU should run OK. I’m not concerned about games displaying on the laptop screen. A lot of questions, sorry.
Thanks for any help.

A lot to unpack here. If you are primarily using it to play games and using it as a home theater/entertainment system I might recommend you stick with windows. You will otherwise have to dive down many rabbit holes and deal with a lot of issues around gaming on Linux.

I believe that if your primary OS is windows then it might be best to just dual boot Ubuntu but others might have different thoughts. I do r use windows as a DD.

As far as raid goes generally hardware raid is to be avoided. Since you are using windows I don’t really have an opinion on which is better, windows built in raid or amd raid but with software raid if there is a hardware failure it is generally much easier to recover from.

Ok, It’s probably best not to use linux for now - or in VM. Not worried about the raid 10. Used motherboard raid 10 for many years off and on without a hitch. Maybe I’m lucky but I’d have to lose 2 disks to lose data, one from each stripe. And I always use the same brand MB’s; never had issues people talk about not being useable in another MB. Just when I upgraded Motherboard and processors I’d install the OS (with bios set to raid), then put the raid data drives in, add them to the raid controller and it would set everything from the parameters already on the disks. I never ran into any issue until I tried dual booting win 7 and 11. 11 wouldn’t see them, or 11 would and 7 wouldn’t. From what I was reading if MB raid is used both 11 and linux can read them. For what it is worth I’ve never used software raid.
I could probably set up ubuntu in VM and learn it from there. Right now I don’t have secure boot enabled, but if MS starts enforcing it then any data stored on a PC is gone anyways because of security. That’s probably why they want everything stored on Onedrive. Not happening for me. I know few people use raid anymore, but it’s still good speed in 0, and both those drives have backup (the 1) so I’m not seeing much danger. I will do other backups from time to time on a drive noy stored on location. I lost 6 backups previously when our house was reduced to ashes.
Store MI basically (crude basic explanation) uses ssd’s or NVME drives as cache for the HDD drives, I was wondering if anyone knew any other way to do it. I can experiment with the gaming part later - I use my main rig for it now anyways.

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