I'm planning to setup a new file server for my home office with a couple of SATA hard drives in a RAID 1 array, most likely connected to the motherboard's onboard RAID controller (I havn't chosen the hardware yet). If one hard drive goes down, the other one will keep my data available until I can get a replacement and I can easily pick up a replacement drive the same day from any local computer store... all good.

However, if the server's motherboard was to die, obviously I can't access my data at all until the drives are setup on a new PC / motherboard so I need to be prepared for this scenario. A matching motherboard may not be something that I can replace without waiting for one to be delivered, so would I be able to plug my existing RAID array into any make/model of new motherboard that has a hardware RAID controller? Is a RAID array somehow tied to the model of RAID controller it was setup on?

Also, would I be able to simply plug one of the RAID drives into my (non-raid) desktop PC, or laptop via USB caddy, and use it like any other ext3 partitioned drive in a non-raid way?