Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org> wrote: > Do you understand what NCQ does? > It allows an intelligent drive to queue for the bus, > because the bus is dumb. > > So what do you think an intelligent strorage controller does? > (light bulb!) Yes, I understand. I also don't have an unlimited budget. If I can get most of the benefit without needing a $300-800 add-on, that's a big plus. > Put in an out-of-band GbE card or iSCSI HBA instead. Trust me on > this, you do _not_ want USB or FireWire. I conceptually understand iSCSI, but how would I use a GbE NIC in a backup solution? Don't forget that a backup solution would depend on hot-pluggability. That's why I was thinking of USB/IEEE-1394. > I like the HP DL385 (2-way) and DL585 (4-way) servers. Cool, I will take a look at HP's offerings. Do you have any motherboards alone that you would recommend? Kirk Bocek