Quote Originally Posted by WoLpH View Post
Perhaps a little off-topic, but as I'm facing the decision to get a new system and I have a pretty high-end disk array, I'm wondering what the performance would be using a 'normal' motherboard?

My current workstation (dual opteron 246), has an Areca 1280ML with 16x WD5000AAKS on it and 2GB cache. But as these processors clearly need an upgrade I'm thinking of buying either a fast Core 2 Quad or a (most likely less fast because of the price) Xeon system. So I'm wondering, has anyone around here have experience with a regular desktop system running a high-end disk setup? I haven't found anyone with a similar setup in this topic.
Since workstation motherboards don't offer any overclocking possibilities and are a lot more expensive I find a Core 2 Quad a nice option, if my raid card will still be used to the maximum. I really like the high disk performance I have right now.

PS: I only run Linux and Unix, so some hardware might not be completely compatible/possible.
I'm using a similar set up as you with 10 raptors striped. Yes you want to upgrade to a quad core or dual quad. I went from a 975X to X38 system and the PCI-E performance on the Areca is better. The burst speed in HD Tach is about 450MB/S better than the pic above.