I was actually thinking more low rent. My current motherboard has the following slots:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/E7505/X5DA8.cfm
PCI Expansion • 1x 64-bit 133/100/66MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slot
• 2x 64-bit 100/66MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slots
• 2x 32-bit 33MHz PCI-X (5V) slots
and
Chipset • Intel® E7505 chipset
• MCH + ICH4 + P64H2
SCSI • Adaptec AIC-7902 Controller
• Dual-Channel Ultra320 SCSI
Now, in theory, IIRC, 266 mb/sec should be easy, and 512 possible.
The problem I've had in the past is that when actually pushed, the chipsets come nowhere near the standard for speed. I will admit that the only time that's been a problem with this motherboard is using a Zero insertion card from adaptec
uke:
I'm pretty suret the 1 X 133 slot has the Megaraid 3201 LSI card in it, and, that's connected to a 5 drive, SCSI Supermicro box, similar to the one David posted to above.
The onboard scsi is never used, for the simple reason no one makes a Raid 0 card that has a fast enough chipset to get it over 80-90 mb/sec, that costs less then the LSI megaraid card did. Also, 3 10k 146 gig Cheetahs is fine for fast storage, and, for slower, the SATA drives are now pulling near 100mb/sec on the card in one of the 64-bit 100/66MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slots.
All that said, I'm wondering what the actual through put levels would be with this motherboard, and a new generation SATA card?
Also, how well do Solid state drives work in Raid 0? With the Megaraid 3201 Controller, I found 2 drives to be the sweet spot. More drives, seems like a bit of a lag in seek times, with higher sustained through put.
With two drives, I notice a very large increase in sustained transfer rates, and, it seems that random seeks are much faster as well. As I add more drives, I seem to get less increase in actual performance.
The appeal might be just two SSD's, in raid zero. Even with SATA 1.5, and a max transfer rate at 127 mb/sec, one might feel a snappier system due to the near instant seeks?
I'm also wondering if a PCI-X card, in one of the 64 bit slots, might not actually give you nearly 300 mb/sec, with a couple SSDs?