thanks for all the replies.

For the curious, the backend app is called WebSurvent provided by CfMC
( http://www.cfmc.com ).  The program is for collecting & processing
data from online surveys.  Because the system can also tie into our
data collection on the phone side, it's ideal to have the system in
house, rather than getting hosting from the outside.

The hardware specs/cost estimates are not from a hardware supplier,
but from the software supplier of the backend app we're going to be
running.  I imagine they quoted high and could be using an outdated
pricing guide.  I'm not sure how resource hungry the software is, but
according to them a rig at spec given should peak at ~800 concurrent
connections.  I'd guess that our max load will maybe hit 200
conncurent to start, but it's really hard to say and I imagine usage
will go up over time.

Here's a system from penguincomputing.com for ~ $3700

Relion 2600SA Server
2x Xeon 5130 2.0GHz
4GB DDR2-667 (4 x 1GB)
160GB /
Software RAID -  (3) 160GB (hardware raid is additional $800)
DVD-ROM
Fedora Core 5
3-Year Warranty


From previous comments it sounds like I would want to replace the
Fedora install with CentOS, rather than upgrading to some enterprise
sollution.  I'm hesitant on going with a sofware raid, but $800 for a
controller seems steep to me.

Another question I have is SCSI vs SATA vs SAS.  I'm aware that scsi
is performance/reliability over cost and sata is cost savings over
performance.  I'm not familiar with SAS though.  How does compare?
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