Mac,
Thanks for the clarification - I still think that SCSI would be viable, though, escpecially as more I/O is offloaded to the dedicated card.
Actually, as for BIOS limits if you boot from flash, *BSD doesn't use BIOS calls so it doesn't care, so just don't configure the HDD in the BIOS.
That's interesting - I didn't realise that. Does that mean that BSD communicates directly over the IDE interface to the disk, even if the disk is not recognised and / or installed in the BIOS? I.E. set to "none"? Providing that you boot from other than the HD. Presumably you can boot off USB if the PC supports it? Potentially another problem with P3, though.
Agree with P4 - much more capable mobos & chipsets.
SD