Sorry did not get back here for long time,... I am touring at the moment, so not so much time. I did tryied some of our files on a single diskd before.

Richard I will make some better tests soon I get back,.. but from what I recall, without the RAID set up, I can achive on a single SATA drive, sometimes 3, sometimes 2 original DV files from the library. Depends a lot on how much information you have on the movie.

Regarding big files (like 2400 x 600) or HD 1920 x 1080, with compressions in beetween 60 and 80% ( I got upper that 70% gets bad, but some movies, speccially with black background and white lettering, gets some strange white points arround the letters.) I never got those movies playing at 30 fps.
They always still arround 27, 28, sometimes less. The RAID gets them to play at 30 fps.

Funny, I had a movie 2400 x 600 ( black and white on the begining, and then gets some colors), on the BW he got the 30 fps on a single SATA drive, when reach the colored part, drops to 24, 25 fps. Very funny....

I will make some more tests next week soon I get back. Cheers to all....