Okay, I've got to get on my soapbox at least once during this interminable build.
Major, major kudos to CRU Dataport--the purveyor of the 4-port SaS external box--for using corn starch peanuts as their packing material. Living in a sometimes windy city, I know how many of these little peanut beggars wind up in the street and everywhere else. I've actually seen them in national parks in supposedly remote areas and wasted some time I wanted to spend enjoying the sights cleaning them up.
You'll never see the corn starch variety for long, however, as they will dissolve in the rain in a relatively short period of time. Woohoo!
A couple of vendors have used paper. Just as good as it's easy to recycle.
Alright, enough of that. Back to the Dream PC. Here's that surround FSX cockpit I was talking about. Okay, so I didn't have the window on the right-hand monitor lined up quite right and I didn't have the monitors as close together as they could be or angled properly. I was just stoked to be there... 
All the SaS drives are in the external box and the array is fine. Still can't get the Adaptec controllers to cohabitate though they work fine on my office test bed.
Cheers, Jon
PC World Dream PC Build
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jonljacobi
in response to: nxaw91
Me too. Simply didn't have time to figure it out. FSX is still BSoD'ing on exit though. I'm betting the next nVidia driver release fixes it.
lespaulrokker
Awesome, Jon! I was waiting to see that setup Maaaaan!
Number3124
Awesome job man, but one think I missed was why the SAS drives had to be external instead of internal?
jonljacobi
in response to: Number3124
Three reasons.
1. Thermals. The case would always sound like a 747 taxiing with those things inside and the Vantec's were blowing the heat towards the 9800 GX2's. I could've worked this out if it weren't for...
2. I have yet to find a controller that's happy with this setup and I needed the extra storage now, not two weeks from now when I get a new BIOS.
3. Boot time. Booting an Adaptec SAS controller adds at least 20 to 30 seconds to the boot process. Coupled with the D5400XS's 45 seconds before the monitor even displays, I was getting extremely irritated.
All in all, I just figured whoever wins this would be happier with the tamer, but very polite SATA RAID setup. Anyone who wants the SaS drives internal will know enough about how to put them there and the BIOS situation should be straightened out by then. That said, they're just as fast in a separate box and you can use it for backup along with the Iomega if you so choose.
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Congrats Jon...thats pretty cool there
Been waiting a while to see the tri-monitor cockpit...