Configuration of RS/6000 Model 320

[Oonchye Khoo]

A question for those who already have RS/6000's:

The Economics Department here will be getting two Model 320's in
the Fall, (the Desktop models).  The configuration we are thinking
of getting are with:  8-megs of memory, 320mb hard drives, ethernet cards,
standard grey scale monitors and a tape drive for one of the machines.

Are the 320's brain damaged in any way?  ie. Should we go with the next model 
up instead?  
Is 8 megs of memory enough, or will the machine run much better with 16 megs?
Are 320mb hard drives big enough (we plan to have about 50 users on each
machine).

We will be running statistical software with large databases on the machines,
and will probably run OSF/Motif as well.

I would espeacially like to hear from people with experience in SAS, TSP, RATS
SPSS, MATLAB etc....

Thanks in advance.
---
 Ah Love! Could You and I with Fate conspire, To Grasp this sorry scheme
 *of things             (Lawrence Oon-Chye Khoo)               Entire, * 
 Would we not            khoo at husc8.harvard.edu               Shatter it
 *and then,        35 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138           Shape it*  
 closer to our heart's Desire.   ---   From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam.