Good Ideas Guys! Thanks!
I really wish that this stuff was covered on the A+ when I took it 8 years ago.. ..assembling top of the line, 1st Gen Pentiums and not following PCI load balancing rules may have attributed to lackluster performance. I will have to keep this in mind for the future.
I've also played with a few more ideas. The AMD k6-266 is not server material. I've got a nice little PII-450 that is calling for the 'server' transformation.
All in all, when transfering oddles and gobs (several gigs of data at a time) across the network, over the day, the difference between 20Mps thuroughput and 75+Mps thuroughput will make quite a difference.
Thanks Again
-SF