@Shemsi

Not sure if you know this or not, if so disregard, but you are going to need an OS for the VMWare desktop product.

VMWare will not go on baremetal on anything that is not server class. It will do Linux how ever.

You also need to make you have SATA drives running at 7200 rpm at least.

Remember you are going to lose a TB on a RAID 5 config w/ your setup for parity. Plus only one drive can fail before it blows up. You may want to look at raid 1+0, you will have to buy one more drive, but two striped mirrors is good unless you can afford to somehow find a way to put Raid 5+0 on a workstation. I never have tried or even looked it up to see if it was possible

Something that a lot of people do not look @ :

* Backup in case some one steals your PC
* LCDs, how are you going to have a killer PC and a 14 inch monochrome monitor? @ least have a dual setup, you will never go back.
* Possibly another HDD controller for faster access to your HDDs because with RAid 5 your reads are fast, but your writes will depend on the controller.
* A security device that anchors the PC in case someone tries to steal it.

Replacing your PC is one thing, but data is something that can be lost for ever.