jskrewson - 5:15 pm on Dec 8, 2010 (gmt 0)

I have been looking into high end workstations as well. My current workstation only has 4 drive bays and its limited expandability has been a sore point for the last 1.5 years. e.g. maxed out at 48GB of RAM, power supply not big enough, not enough drives, no RAID 10.

I guess that's why I'm leaning towards a larger server. I want the ability to add drives & RAM as needed. I'm really I/O bound with the data processing I do so large drive arrays with a very fast I/O bus is needed.

You are right about the SSD's and my plan was to wait until Intel releases their new, larger capacity SSD's in the first half of 2011. I've just been getting about 2-3 blue screens a week, coupled with a dead PCI controller and a dying SATA controller.

I really benefited from the Dell onsite warranty with "keep your drives" with my current computer. I tend to kill drives pretty quickly with constant read/writes from many threads, 24/7/365. Then again, I was using WD Raptors, which have a very high failure rate.

I'm mulling over the idea of moving the server into an existing server closet, but cooling would be an issue. I would need an HVAC guy to come out and add a thermastat. I currently only use this closet for modem/router/UPS/switch box.