Question about building multiple drive systems

After reading many, many posts, I am taking a stab on a possible solution to the problem of how to rip multiple CDs simultaneously in an affordable manner. I have approximately 1200 CDs that I wish to rip to FLAC.

I may be able to configure 2 machines using the following optical drives:

Plextor PX-230A - ATAPI
Plextor PX-708a - ATAPI
Samung SH-S203B - SATA
And possibly the Plextor PX-760a - ATAPI

MACHINE 1:
I have a quad core machine with 1 IDE slot, 6 SATA slots, and 2 PCI slots.
I will run either Windows XP or Vista

IDE Slot: Drive 1: Master - Maxtor IDE drive (system drive)
Drive 2: Slave - Plextor PX-230A - ATAPI


PCI Slot 1: Some PCI to IDE adapter

Drive 3: Master - Plextor PX-230A
Drive 4: Slave - Plextor PX-708a

PCI Slot 2: Some PCI to IDE adapter

Drive 5: Master - Plextor PX-230A
Drive 6: Slave - Plextor PX-760a

SATA Slot 1: WD 150 GB Hard drive
SATA Slot 2: WD 500 GB Hard drive
SATA Slot 3: Samung SH-S203B
SATA Slot 4: WD 500 GB Hard drive - THIS IS THE DRIVE I WILL RIP TO!!!!!!!!!!


MACHINE 2:

This machine would be a 1.1 GHZ Pentium 3
I will probably run XP because I don't have 1 GB of memory for this system

IDE Slot 1: Drive 1: Master - Maxtor IDE drive (system drive)
Drive 2: Slave - Plextor PX-230A

IDE Slot 2: Drive 3: Master - Plextor PX-230A
Drive 4: Slave - Plextor PX-708a

PCI Slot 1: Adaptec PCI to SATA controller
Drive 5: WD 500 GB Hard drive

USB or Firewire Port: Removeable HD (500-750GB)


I would like to rip from each opticial drive simultaneously, if possible.

Please answer the following questions for BOTH Machine 1 and Machine 2.

Are the hardware configurations appropriate, keeping in mind that I'd like to maintain full dbpoweramp functionality (C2, etc)
Can I use batch ripper? Or must I run multiple instances of CD Ripper instead?
Please recommend an IDE to SATA adapter (Please recommend Manufacturer and Model *)
I will run either Windows XP or Vista on the quad core. (please give recommendation on which one I should choose & why)
Do I run the risk of "dropping to PIO mode" (is this an issue in Vista?) If so, how can I avoid this?
If there is a better drive combination for each slot/primary/secondary port, please comment.
Lastly, if I had to choose between the two systems, the quad core seems to be the obvious choice. Is this correct?

Thank you in advance

computer-girl