Well it was a error issue with drive 3. It's not functioning 100% correctly. SMART reports no errors but when I reconditioned it but it still seems to be having delay issues
So I rebuilt the array into a 3 drive raid 5 and put the iffy drive into slot 4 as a spare.
It will function OK for an emergency backup but then I'll need 2 drives pronto.
The good news is that transfer rates are solid in at 50+ for both R/W now. Still going to do the memory upgrade as I imagine it will help keep them up there when 4 compys are hitting it.
On a side note the 4100 is back up and running as well but it's drives are is worse shape but functioning at least ... rocking a good 5 mb/s LOL gotto love 10/100's. It's still getting retired as I just can't find a use for it.
Now the main question is whether to just bit the bullet and do a sata conversion or deal with buying used 1-2 250 IDE's and hoping there good. It just does not make sense to mae to pay >$60 for a new 250.
Phoenix32 you don't by any chance still have 4 of those converters for sale do you
I need to look over newegg for some inexpensive drives and see what this will cost.