new server motherboard with SATA II

[soralx at cydem.org]

> I'm thinking of getting a couple of Promise SATA-300 TX4 IO cards 
> (non-raid).  Perhaps that will offload the CPU.

Loading PCI bus with more plain SATA controllers? Don't expect any
positive results.

How about something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330240176734
(PERC 5/i SAS RAID controller HBA, PCIe x8, 256MB RAM) -- $120

This should give you ~300-400 MB/s with your 5 drives. It might not work
with your mainboard, though -- but there's a trick to isolate SMBus pins
the card edge connector (search the Net).

> -D

[SorAlx]  ridin' VN1500-B2