Hi,
Have a look at http://www.intel.com/products/server/platforms/index.htm especially the Zeon Multi Processor systems with SCSI Raid 10 & redundant power supplies, they are very reliable, and once setup they virtually run themselves.

I have the above in a couple of finance companies & Legal firms as the main data server, with a separate PDC and remote access servers.

With this amount of data you going to need a very fast tape drive maybe something like the following autoloader, once setup they run without intervention other than someone rotating the tapes off site http://www.sony.com.au/storstation/catalog/product.jsp?categoryId=23025

Also have a look at a drive to drive to tape backup scenario, it gives the highest backup speed and makes for very fast restores as you already have the last backup on the backup drive.



>>Hi,
>><snip> These guys have heavy disk space and communications needs, but don't have deep pockets.
>>
>>Best advice I can give is (in lieu of the last comment) find another site to administer, sounds like one to be too busy to do.
>
>Nah - their desktop support needs are pretty lightweight.