Help me urgently : How can I speed up our squid?

Hello!
I am Mr. Lee in charge of the operating the Squid cache server.
I have a big problem in our squid performance.
So, I need some solutions and recomendation to solve the probelm.
Please help me!
These followings are our squid information.

================= Information ==================
1. Platform & Squid Version
   o. Platform : SUN Enterprise 3000 (Total 2 ea)
   o. OS : Solaris 2.5.1
   o. Squid Version : Squid v1.1.17
2. Squid Server File System Info(per EP3000)
   o. Internal Disk (4 Gbytes) : Boot System & Squid Libray
   o. External Disk Array(Hitachi DF300-64GB) : Cache Directories
       8 LUNs - 16 File Partitions (Total 16 Cache Dirs)
3. Squid Usage Info(Per Squid System)
   o. Total TCP connections per day : over 2,000,000
   o. Connections per hour : over 250,000 (Peak time = 12:30 - 13:30)

4. Problem in Squid
   => Low Performance during peak time (12:30 - 13:30)
       We got the slow response time from squid, maybe I got the
messages - "Connected to ...." -
       over 1 or 2 minutes.
       So, I killed the squid processor very often. But, some minutes
later I must wait for very long time
       to get the "Connected to.." messages.

5. Squid Configutation Info
   --------------------------------
http_port 80
single_parent_bypass off
source_ping off
hierarchy_stoplist cgi-bin ?
cache_stoplist cgi-bin ?
cache_mem 896
cache_swap 5000
cache_swap_low 85
cache_swap_high 90
cache_mem_low 75
cache_mem_high 90
ipcache_size 1024
ipcache_low 90
ipcache_high 95
cache_dir /home1/squid/cache
cache_dir /home9/squid/cache
cache_dir /home3/squid/cache
cache_dir /home11/squid/cache
cache_dir /home5/squid/cache
cache_dir /home13/squid/cache
cache_dir /home7/squid/cache
cache_dir /home15/squid/cache
cache_dir /home2/squid/cache
cache_dir /home10/squid/cache
cache_dir /home4/squid/cache
cache_dir /home12/squid/cache
cache_dir /home6/squid/cache
cache_dir /home14/squid/cache
cache_dir /home8/squid/cache
cache_dir /home8/squid/cache
cache_access_log /home16/squid/logs/access.log
cache_log /home16/squid/logs/cache.log
cache_store_log /home16/squid/logs/store.log
emulate_httpd_log off
pid_filename /home16/squid/logs/squid.pid
debug_options ALL,1
ftpget_program /usr/local/squid/bin/ftpget
ftpget_options -n 60 -R -W
cache_dns_program /usr/local/squid/bin/dnsserver
dns_children 32
request_size 10000
refresh_pattern . 0 20% 4320
reference_age 2 weeks
quick_abort -1 0 0
negative_ttl 5
positive_dns_ttl 360
connect_timeout 60
read_timeout 5
client_lifetime 100
shutdown_lifetime 30
acl manager proto cache_object
acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255
acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
acl SSL_ports port 443 563
acl Dangerous_ports port 7 9 19
acl CONNECT method CONNECT
acl INTRA dst 165.244.227.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC1 src 165.243.64.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC2 src 165.243.65.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC3 src 165.243.66.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC4 src 165.243.67.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC5 src 165.243.68.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC6 src 165.243.69.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC7 src 165.243.70.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC8 src 165.243.71.0/255.255.255.0
acl LIC9 src 165.243.72.0/255.255.255.0
acl LICA src 165.243.73.0/255.255.255.0
acl LICB src 165.243.74.0/255.255.255.0
http_access allow manager 165.243.19.0/255.255.255.0
http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports
http_access deny Dangerous_ports
http_access deny INTRA
http_access deny LICA
http_access deny LICB
http_access deny LIC1
http_access deny LIC2
http_access deny LIC3
http_access deny LIC4
http_access deny LIC5
http_access deny LIC6
http_access deny LIC7
http_access deny LIC8
http_access deny LIC9
http_access allow all
icp_access allow all
miss_access allow all
cache_effective_user squid squid
dns_testnames internic.net usc.edu cs.colorado.edu mit.edu yale.edu
logfile_rotate 2
ssl_proxy 165.243.19.4:443
minimum_direct_hops 4
Received on Sun Feb 01 1998 - 17:46:13 MST