In May 2006, Daron Malakian has announced that they were going on hiatus and that broke will take few years.
In an interview at “Guitar” magazine, Shavo Odadjian said it will took at least 3 years. He told in an MTV interview: “We’re not breaking up. If that was the case, we wouldn’t be doing this Ozzfest. We’re going to take a very long break after Ozzfest and do our own things. We’ve done System for over ten years, and I think it’s healthy to take a rest.”
Daron Malakian said later: “There’s been a lot of rumors about us breaking up. Well, don’t listen to them. Us four right here, we will always be System of a Down!”
System of a Down’s final concert was on August 13, 2006, in West Palm Beach, Florida, when Daron Malakian announced: “Tonight will be the last show we play for a long time together. We’ll be back. We just don’t know when.”

Shavo Odadjian told to Launch Radio Networks:

We’re just not working together right now. We kind of like split up at first, but you know, we’re brothers, man, we’ll take bullets for each other. So it’s like, you kind of miss each other after a while and you, one guy makes the first move, then another starts making phone calls….this is a juggernaut, man. System of a Down is my lifeline. It’ll never go away. We could not make a record for 10 years — that’s not gonna happen, but I’m just saying we could — and we’ll come back strong.

Daron Malakian was asked in February 2008 about System of a Down and he said:

There’s no talk of System doing anything. We’re not planning on doing anything. If anyone’s holding their breath for a new System record, they’re going to turn blue and pass out. It’s a long ways away, if it ever even happens. We don’t even talk about it - none of us. This (Scars on Broadway) is my band right now.

In an April 2008 interview with “Kerrang” magazine, Daron Malakian say:

Yeah. It’ll feel good and happen. I can respect this situation (System’s hiatus) more than I can respect the situation where two people are like, ‘The lead singer fucked my girlfriend!’ and that kind of bullshit. Nah, man. The lead singer is a special person to me and I am to him. And that’s how we ended off. Same with Shavo, same with John. And it will always be. It was a big part of my life. We were onstage together for a long time, man. We went through shit as a band and friends — we slept in RVs together!

Now Serj Tankian have his own solo album called “Elect The Dead” , Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan sings in Scars on Broadway band and Shavo Odadjian formed the band Achozen with Rza and Kinetic 9.