Finder using all of my available RAM

When you say "left it open" are you referring to a finder window? Closing the window does not close finder.

Make sure you have ample freespace on your hard drive

running permission checks and hard drive tests (using Disk Utility) might help.

You can also put the system in target disk mode and boot off of it from another machine, in case there is some hardware issue. this will rule most things out except the hard drive.

I also use onyx and other utilities found at http://www.titanium.free.fr/ to help clean up caches and tweaks to osx. use at your own risk.

if this has not resolved the problem, then you may be a victim of a corrupt spotlight index.

I had an issue not quite like this but close enough to offer as a possible solution.

Here's how you fix a corrupt spotlight index:

1. Open system preferences

2. open spotlight (top right)

3. click on privacy tab

4. click and drag your hard drive into the window (if you have more than one, perform this one at a time.)

you will leave this in here for at least 10 minutes. no less. (seems hokey but osx does stuff behind the scene ie removing existing index)

after your 10 mins at least is up, go back in and remove your HD from the privacy tab, and osx should start rebuilding a new index.

repeat for any additional drives you may have. I would also close out of system preferences while you are waiting your 10 minutes.

HTH

Ok sounds like your pretty familiar with OSX so sorry for some of the beginner commentary. Let me know if the spotlight index fixes the issue!

Hmm raid 1, I wonder if you will have to break the raid in order to boot from target disk mode? this would be less than ideal. While in disk utility, do both drives show as healthy, and the raid? It will show if the system thinks the RAID is degraded.

Glad this worked out for you.

My expoeriance (which is indeed limited, 2 yrs of server) is everytime I have something happen (like your above issue) I immediately think to Windows Server days, where it must be something critical. It seems like with OSX Server, everytime I think there is a critical issue that causes panick (even though I have CCC and cloned HD every 2 hours) it ends up being something of this nature. Or hard drive space running low. Its one of the reasons I like Snow Leopard Server. I very rarely have a true critical issue, and for the most part just works.

Glad you got it worked out.