Whether you choose HW or SW RAID you should back up your data. Choosing the right RAID type is also important. For instance, when creating my ZFS RAID, I will be using a 4x8TB disk raidz2 configuration. What this means is my array (storage pool) will only have ~14.5TB of available storage but can survive 2 disk failures. I do this because I am risk averse. Conversely, you could take the same disks and configure them in a raidz1 and get a little than 22TB of usable capacity but only survive 1 disk failure.
The good news is ZFS, the underlying filesystem, is incredibly resilient so as long as our backing up your data, you can focus on which type of raid array you should use based on how many disks you have to use and your own personal risk tolerance.
Hope that helps. Good luck!