> In terms of RAM costs, we have decided to (as you say) try it and see want happens. But our costs are signifcantly higher than you quoted because IS uses only name brand machines with manufacturers RAM.
>
You're talking about implementing RAID5 arrays, Xeon processor(s), etc. If 512MB RAM pushes you 50% over hardware budget, that implies you're being quoted multiple thousands of dollars for that extra RAM. Could you do us a favour and let us know who's quoting you that price (and what it was), so we know who to avoid when we want hardware?

"Name-brand" RAM is a crock - these days anyone in that business has one or more billion-dollar fabs, and total quality control is the only way to make them pay. What do you consider "name-brand"? Dell? Compaq? Neither of those has any fabs, they buy all their semiconductors from others.

>Our network is optimized fairly well now. We can copy a 1 gig file from machine to machine in about 15 minutes. Getting the files onto our network is a another matter. FTP is obviously not an option. Our client does have compression software and writeable CD Rom drives, so one possiblity is to have them compress the data and put it on CD Rom. (A gig file compressed will fit easily on a CD Rom drive. There is a lot of empty space in dbf files, and compression usually reduces them to about 20% of uncompressed size). Since our client is local, they should have no problem getting the CDs to us.

Yep, at a buck a shot a CD-R is going to be tough to beat here.