Problem solved! (aka. ZA Pro sucks)

Apparently the problem was related to my upgrade to Zone Alarm Pro. I haven't started trying to figure out what the specific issue was but with ZA off and the standard firewall back on performance is back to it's normal self. I'll post more information as I get it but for the mean time if someone can suggest a better firewall I'd greatly appreciate it.

The problems continue

I cloned the hard drive over the last couple of days; it actually took that long because of the read speed of the drive. The fact that it took that long leads me to believe that this problem may be a hardware issue but witching the drives out didn't do anything to help the issue.

I'm very close to just turning this $1300 desk weight into a tech center and letting them pound their heads on it for a while.