Hello matey,
I got my ESATA to SATA cables from this Ebay seller:
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/tm-direct/
I purchased 2 one 500mm & one 1m the 500mm length is perfect.
With regards to drives spinning down; I've set mine to spin down after 30mins of inactivety.
Interruptions to streaming are minimised by setting a split share on a folder i.e movie folder,
this then keeps the VOB files together on one drive.
I've set aside one drive solely for music, photos, & some data, the rest is set for various media (films & Xvids).
Not storing HD of any quantity as my cinema & plasma are SD only & to be perfectly honest if you were going to
rip BD's you're gonna need a lot more space
My setup is for streaming only so i can't really comment on the other apps you mention.
I still haven't set my parity drive yet as i'm still upping data, i am a bit concerned though as this drive hasn't been
formatted yet, do you know if it needs to be?
I've checked the Unraid manual where there is no mention of formatting the parity drive.
Cheers.
Tim.