hello all,

my old system was a TYAN S2885 with Opteron 246's SCSI based. i have started a newer system to replace it. i record multi-track sessions w/ 16-40 track count typical (no samples) for paying customers so stability and speed is key.

i greatly appreciate opinions on my direction and if it should be steered otherwise. money IS key so i made compromises and watched for discounts at New Egg, etc. i also use this machine as 'workstation' machine for ACAD9 when not recording.

at it's present state it consist of:

ASUS M4A79T DELUXE
AMD PHENON II X4 AM3 955 3.2GHz
ASUS APPROVED CORSAIR XMS3 MEMORY 4Gb
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON HD 4890 PCIe
HIGHPOINT RR4320 HARDWARE RAID PCIe X8
SOUND ISOLATED LARGE CASE W/ NICE 'REAL' 750W PS

i have not purchased the HDs yet.

most say that SAS's performance to price ration is not very good + they are noisy.

with the RR4320 Hardware RAID i am leaning toward RAID 10 (1+0/0+1) as its the best of both RAID worlds. agree?

i am looking at these Hard Drives (qty 4 if using RAID10) in this order of preference:
WD SATA II RE3 SERIES 16 OR 32Mb CACHE RAID RATED
WD RAPTOR II 150Gb 10K

or

SAS 15K 174Gb 16Mb CACHE (if i can find heavy discounted) - noisy but fast!

opinions requested for best HDs to use with the RR4320?

since the RR4320 has 2 ports with 4 HDs per port, another decision appears?

should i separate the DAW functions and put some on Port 1 and some on Port2? (kinda like we do/did Boot on C; and DAW function on another HD D:)

thanks for you suggestions.

later,
Billy