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RAID operates by joining two or more disks into a single logical device. There are several layers of RAID:

RAID 0 layer ("striping") just joins two or more disks into a single logical device, without giving any redundancy. It is often used to join  RAID 1 or RAID 5 layers.  RAID 0 + RAID 1 is called RAID 10.  RAID 0 + RAID 5 is called RAID 50.

RAID 1 (mirroring) combines two disks, each containing the same data.

RAID 4 combines three or more disks, with one of the disks dedicated to parity. If any disk fails, the whole logical device remains available, but with degraded performance. It is not used very often because of the performance.

RAID 5 combines three or more disks, with parity distributed accross the disks. Functionality similar to RAID 4 but apparently better performance.

Try http://www.osfaq.com/vol1/linux_softraid.htm  for more information.

RH7.2 gives me an option to set up a software raid almost automatically during the initial operationg system installation procedure.  The (simple) procedure is outlined at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.2-Manual/custom-guide/software-raid.html. Briefly, during RH installation, part "partition the hard drive" :
    (1) Create new partition(s) of the type "software RAID" You will not be able to specify a mount point for the individual "RAID-type" partitions. You can specify the size for each partition, make it "growable", or force it to be the primary partition.
    (2) Press the "Make RAID" button on the Disk Druid screen.
    (3)  Into the dialog box which appears enter: the mount point for the RAID array, the partition type for the RAID array,  the RAID type (you can select between RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5), the RAID member partitions (which you created in (1)), and the number of spares (for RAID 1 or 5). (The "spare" is the partition that will be automatically used should the the software RAID fail. In (1), you should have created at least one "RAID-type" partition + one "RAID-type" partition for each spare.)
    (4) Click "OK", and inspect the "Drive Summary" if your RAID array appears correctly.

 Note:  "If you are making a RAID partition of /boot, you must choose RAID level 1 and it must use one of the first two drives (IDE first, SCSI second). If you are not creating a RAID partition of /boot, and you are making a RAID partition of /, it must be RAID level 1 and it must use one of the first two drives (IDE first, SCSI second)"

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