How much traffic can my server support?

[RossWal]

I have a dedicated server at a top tier hosting provider with a great fiber backbone. The server's not state of the art: Single P4 3 ghtz. Connected with a single 1gb port.

I have short (2 minute) flash video clips hosted on the site as progressive downloads. We're likely to get featured soon in an opt-in email newsletter that hits 350K in boxes. A 10% click through is not unreasonable, so we could have 35K video watchers on the site over a period of hours or days.

Any idea on how I can project capacity and determine when the box will hit the wall?

[ogletree]

Look into a CDN. Even the biggest sites do this. There is no reason to have a server that handles short bursts like that.