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Thanks Freakin!
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Personally I would try to get quad-core xeons on a server board, and probably get 2 10k or 15k RPM SAS drives in Raid 1. A good raid controller is also probably important.
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Sorry to sound ignorant again, but is this something i can show our computer tech dept so they can order it? Or do i need more details for them?
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If your computer tech department has a guy responsible for building and configuring servers, then he should be able to shop for what you need.
It's been a while since I looked around, but I think the Intel Xeon Clovertown are still the best.
Something like the 5355 or 5345 are probably the best pricepoint for you
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...name=Clovertown
You'd also want to get fully buffered (FB) dimms for your memory.
I honestly can't recommend a good motherboard since it's been too long since I shopped for one. Your computer department guys should be able to.
So tell them you want 1 or 2 Xeon Clovertown X5355's, 8-16GB of Fully Buffered memory.
I honestly don't know if you want high-speed storage or more spacious storage. If you're getting 10-15k RPM drives then the biggest drive you'll be getting is 74-150GB, and it will be expensive. Expect to pay about $300-350 for 74GB of 15kRPM Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). This will be faster performance, but possibly not necessary for your uses.
From the way you've described it, it sounds like you don't need high speed storage. You'd probably benefit from having your OS on a 10k RPM drive, but you can get a Western Digital Raptor drive for $180 or so that is 150GB of 10kRPM storage. This would be easy and cost-effective.