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I don't see how a 2-drive RAID0 of Barracuda 7200.12s could be as fast as you claim, especially if you're using FakeRAID.

See here: http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/hard_drives/sata/seagate/7200.12/p3.asp

How are you benchmarking your RAID?

As for highly transactional databases, I would imagine that SLC SSDs would be the way to go, still using wear-leveling, of course.

It doesn't seem much different to the gigabyte kit i put in my computer 2 years ago http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/super_cooling/gigabyte/galaxy/index.htm the only difference being the pre built bit which could cause great difficulty if you want to do something sensible like mount the radiator on the outside. (Note: soon after i got mine they released a second version with a different pump and reservoir, and i can tell why, after 13 months, just out of waranty, my reservoir cracked)

http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/hard_drives/hitachi/ T7K250/

Well this comparison is not really interesting (and I was looking for real-world performance studies, not bench results): it shows a maximum read burst speed of only 135 MB/s for the Hitachi disk (SATA 3.0 Gbps) and 127 MB/s for the Raptor one (SATA 1.5 Gbps), while I have seen other websites' benchmarks reaching more than 200 MB/s during burst transfers in the past. So there is definitely something that went wrong in the hardware or software setup. And I can't say what because the author provide so few technical details... Regarding your question, it depends:

• If you are using a port multiplier supporting 3.0 Gbps SATA links, then the "host-side" link will be running at 3.0 Gbps and the "disk-side" one at 1.5 Gbps.

• If you are using a port multiplier supporting 1.5 Gbps SATA links or if you don't use any, then all of your links will be running at 1.5 Gbps.

But I guess this is what you expected, didn't you ?

Here's a comparison between comparable SATA1 and 2 drives, although it doesn't really look at link saturation like you mentioned: http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/hard_drives/hitachi/ T7K250/

I have an nForce4 with SATA2 links, but I'm running SATA1 drives. (7K250) I wonder if it still gets 300Mb/s total shared link bandwidth?

My cheap 17 dollar 7in1 reader reads memory sticks.
Enermax, same people that make the power supplies.
It works exactly like a USB drive and plugs in a USB port.

Don't know the model, it doesn't have one printed on it but it's got a blue LED and shows up as four USB devices.

Review: http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/card_readers/enermax /aluminum7n1/

lsusb shows:

ID 05e3:0710 Genesys Logic, Inc.

dmesg shows:

Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
    Vendor: Generic Model: STORAGE DEVICE Rev: 9132
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 1
    Vendor: Generic Model: STORAGE DEVICE Rev: 9132
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
Attached scsi removable disk sdc at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 2
    Vendor: Generic Model: STORAGE DEVICE Rev: 9132
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
Attached scsi removable disk sdd at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 3

Wish it had a USB hub, webserver and a hard drive.

I just built up a workstation on which to run Maya 5, and have been using the hell out of it for a week or two, so here's what I have to say about Maya render stations (which are basically workstations minus the Quadro or FireGL card):

Motherboard: Because Maya's renderer is SMP-enabled, you'll probably want to get dual-processor boxes. I suggest AMD machines based on cost - they're a hell of a lot cheaper than their Intel counterparts. A good motherboard is the Asus A7M266-D (760 MPX chipset) - it supports upto 3.5 GB of RAM, and has been rock-solid stable under Linux for me, but it doesn't have onboard video or networking. A good board with onboard video/LAN/SCSI/etc is the Tyan S2466 dual-Athlon board. Keep in mind, though, that these things suck a LOT of power; a good (think Antec) 400 watt (or better) PS is a MUST, or you're going to fry it. I had a Tyan S2460 (2466 minus SCSI, NIC, and onboard video) that fried an off-brand 400 watt power supply because it was sucking so much juice. Don't worry about the specs of the onboard video, because Maya's batch renderer doesn't even bother setting up an OpenGL context; it's completely software rendering from the command line.

Processors: Currently, the Athlon MP 2600+ is at a good price/performance point (approx $150 ea, and the next one up is $200 ea). I'd load every box with a pair of those. If you're looking to save some money and don't mind furiously voiding the warranty on each and every CPU you buy (like me), you can grab some conductive paint, a paintbrush, and a bit of tape, and convert Athlon XP processors into MP-capable processors simply by connecting one of the bridges on the top of the CPU. I did that to a pair of XP2000+ processors, and it worked great; they're still churning away together just fine after almost a year. The price difference is about $70 - if it's worth the savings to you, go ahead and try it. If the chip won't run in SMP mode (rare), you can always stick it into a cheap motherboard and make a desktop workstation for your favorite manager.

Memory: Maya is HEAVY on RAM usage. If you're not planning on having a disk in every machine with plenty of swap space (for those larger scenes), I'd go with at least 1.5 GB (and probably 2 GB) of registered DDR RAM. You should be able to get away with only putting in 1 GB per machine if you have swap space. If you can afford it, spend the extra for ECC memory, because it's nice not to have to worry about memory errors. I did a quick test render (Maya software, 640x480, draft quality) of a 350,000-poly object I'm currently working on, and its average memory usage was right around 600 MB (peak arena size 1186.25 MB, as reported by the renderer). Don't underestimate the amount of RAM that you'll need! My workstation has 1.5 GB of RAM, and it still hits swap.

If you're not booting over the network, I'd throw a fast 18 GB drive in every machine. Make a swap partition of at least 2 GB, and install the OS (I prefer Debian stable, use whatever you want) on the rest of it. You shouldn't have to go overboard on disk; a 7200 RPM IDE drive will be more than adequate.

Networking: Depending on how your scene data is distributed (central fileserver? every node gets a copy beforehand?), I'd go with 100mb switched or full GigE. It basically depends on whether or not you're willing to pay the premium for the faster interconnect. If you put GigE cards in all of the nodes (which doesn't cost much more than putting a good 100mbit card in anyway - I recommend the Netgear GA302 and GA604 gigabit cards), you can always replace the switch if you find things are too slow.

Power and cooling - you'll need plenty of both. One Athlon puts of quite a bit of heat, but pack two into a small box and put 20 of them in a rack (assuming 2U), and you're talking about serious overheating possibilities. You're going to need one hell of an air-conditioning system. If you've already got a datacenter set up, then y