thanks for the figures, looks like the hard drive is the problem and yes it is only a 5400 RPM drive. its only an old system i was using to try out Home Server. Im very pleased with it though so i intend to build something a little more substantial to run it off soon. I would imagine a decent 7200RPM 1TB drive would be adequate for getting some much higher transfer speeds, stevie lee's figures would suggest so anyway....

A little off topic i know but any suggestions for what processor would be adequate? i was thinking something along the lines of the E7400/E7500 C2D as they seen pretty good value for £80 - £90. need something that is capable of transcoding video on the fly for streaming to PS3 as i cant be bothered to convert all my videos to a supported format, lazy i know but thats what computers are for right? also some of the content is in HD.