> 1. RAIDFrame is a no-no on the heavily accessed drives. The huge
> volume of small reads and tiny writes that happen can only be handled
> on a normal ffs-based partition.  Therefore in order to ensure minimal
> data loss, regular backups must be made.

from raid(4):

     a RAID 4 or 5 system, or the loss of a single component of a RAID 0 sys-
     tem, will result in the entire filesystems on that RAID device being
     lost.  RAID is NOT a substitute for good backup practices.

            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

but ccd could be nice for you.

> 2. With RAM at a premium, another balance must be achieved: That of
> file system caching to actual RAM. I could increase the amount of
> memory dedicated to file system caching; but this needs to be
> considered in conjunction with how many users are connected at once.
> Too much, and there's too much wastage and machinery isn't living up
> to its potential. Too little and the users can starve the system.
> 
> 3. SCSI, SCSI, SCSI. Anything less and you're spinning your wheels.
> Preferrably Seagate's new 15k Cheetah drives. Now those, are nice.
> Quantum Atlas V 10k are nice too but hella loud. Sounds like a jet
> fighter throttling up!

i think 2 7200 IBM IDE drives with ccd will give similar performance with
more space and less money.