Steve

With 30 users and a pure file-serving environment, memory and processor are unlikely to make a visible difference- I've seen tests where an old 486 can be just as quick as a P4 in file serving speeds.

If you have $ to spend:

1) Get a big, fast hard drive or drives and a motherboard/card that can make good use of that speed. There is good advice re RAID 0 in previous responses; you decide whether things are too "slow" before you spend the $ for multiple drives, though.

2) Get a decent UPS for the server- well worth the $ to have 30 mins UPS power before the server must power down. Make sure the network hub is on the UPS as well.

3) If the budget is enough, consider UPS cover for workstations as well. If workstations are clustered you can share one bigger UPS among multiple users. FWIW, at our old office we had every workstation on centralised UPS, Windows crashes and other instability was extremely rare, translating to less chance of data file corruptions.

4) Get a modern tape backup with latest tools that simplify the backup process.

5) if you still have $ left, consider RAID for data safety/replication rather than speed.

6) If you *still* have $ left, look at network options for the server and/or workstations- there are numerous options that improve network speeds, might be worth $ in conjunction with a fast HD or RAID.

HTH

Regards

JR