name search query speed

I have about 5M names stored on my DB. Currently the searches are very
quick unless, they are on a very common last name ie. SMITH. The Index
is always used, but I still hit 10-20 seconds on a SMITH or Jones
search, and I average about 6 searches a second and max out at about
30/s. Any suggestions on how I could arrange things to make this search
quicker? I have 4gb of mem on a raid 5 w/ 3 drives. I'm hoping that I
can increase this speed w/o a HW upgrade.

thanx,
-jj-



--
You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
know how seldom they do.
                -- Olin Miller.