Anandtech has an excellent article about servers, and the various formfactors they come in. Studies done by IBM say that about 50% of the hardware failures are related to hard disk problems and 25% are due to a power supply failure. Fans with 8% are a distant third, so it is clear you need power supplies and hard disks of high reliability, the R of RAS. You also want to increase availability, the A of RAS, by using some redundancy for the most vulnerable parts of your server. RAID, redundant power supplies and fans are a must for a critical server. The S in RAS stands for Serviceability, which relates to hot-swappable/pluggable drives and other areas. Do you need to shut down the server to perform maintenance; what items can be replaced/repaired while keeping the system running? All three items are intertwined, and higher-end (and more expensive) servers will have features designed to improve all three areas. For all of you wondering why companies charge and pay for $1,000+ RAID cards and other rather pricey equipment, that's one reason to take a look at this article.
