Easy_Coder - 7:47 pm on Feb 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

I've always gone with a distributed model for a couple of reasons. One, you get many processors working on your execution and Two, we're conducting cc transactions and our bank insists that our database not be directly connected to the internet because our erp houses cc #'s. We're in complete agreement on the latter.

I'm in a Microsoft shop so I can't speak directly to MySql. You should be able to pull off the separate hard drive and nic card (pretty clever) for your db installation but you might get better performance from a distributed model (2 machines). This way your duel procs can be exclusive to your database while the proc on the web server is responsible for web page execution. I'd bump the memory in the web server if you can.

Gigabit Network Adapter

You're going to like the performance of that. Are you running Gigabit on your LAN? You'll really like it when you’re backing up data from your Dell box. It gives you that whoaaa factor.