Let me say at the outset that my preference would be to wait for the new Mac Pro Towers to come out. Having said that, however, I'm looking for some ideas on setting up some sort of network environment for editing with either iMacs or Mac Minis.
I run a University Lab with 4 student work stations and 3 office editing suites. All are connected to the network via gigabit. In the past, we successfully used the FCP Server as an edit-in-place device. Well... it was successful at *that* anyway 
We shoot long-format, multicam, HD AVCHD (and we want to edit it natively). Typically 4 or 5 two-camera, hour long shoots a week. We also do occassional P2 work (2 or 3 camera shoots), DSLR (short pieces) and several three-camera (or more) multicam theater productions (2-4 hours each - AVCHD).
Does anyone have recommendations for a fast and reliable network solution (ideally over ethernet unless Thunderbolt would be a better solution) that would support, say, 4 simultaneous editors? For the moment, let's say price is not as much of an issue as speed and reliablility. I already have a 16TB network for medium-term storage of finished archived pieces and raw footage. I'm looking for something smaller (4 TB), for working projects over the course of a semester. TPTB would like to have it stored in the Server Room (which is why I said Ethernet over Thunderbolt).
As to computers... I'm no fan of iMacs (I prefer Minis) but the highest end one seems to have an Adobe supported graphics card. As far as I can tell the minis don't. Both iMacs and Minis have Thunderbolt but I really **really** don't want the nightmare of multiple external harddrives (been there, done that, hated it!). Does anyone have experience using Premiere on either a mini or iMac?
Any other thoughts would be greatly appreciated. This isn't the route I want to go, but the money is available now and the new Mac Towers are not.
Thanks
Allynn