Server Recommendations!

[Gary Jarrel]

Hi All!

I need some advice on configuring a web and a database server - quite
powerful both running Ubuntu. The configuration which I've come up
with for both servers is as follows:

2 x Xeon 3Ghz Dual Core Processors  (4 processors approx :)
Dual Xeon Motherboard
4 x 2Ggb DDR2 533 ECC Memory (8Gig)
4 Port 3WARE Sata2 RAID controller

That being the core then for the web server:

4 x 320 SATA2 Drives 16Mb Cache (Hardware RAID5 of 3Ware Controller)

and the DB server:

2 x 320 SATA2 16Mb Cache Drives (Software Raid of motherboard for OS)
4 x 750 SATA2 16Mb Cache Drives (Hardware RAID5 of 3Ware Controller
for Database)

All drives are 7200RPM

The two machines will be connected via a CAT6e Twisted Pair cable
using one of the Gigabit LAN on each board - for web server access to
the database. The Web server then connects to the local intranet using
the other Gigabit LAN.

I need to obtain very good performance out of both machines for quite
a large user base. I would prefer to use Ubuntu 64bit (board,
processor, 3ware raid are all 64 bit) as Ubuntu is indeed very stable
and I already have a number of servers running on it (but not this
powerful)

For the web server it will probably run Tomcat (will most probably
leave Apache 2 out with Tomcat direct on port 80 as this seems to work
quite well in my previous experience) the database server at this
stage will be MySQL5 but this has not been finalised.

The main concern is with the 2 x Dual Core processors - Will ubuntu be
able to address both processors and both cores on each concurrently
and will it improve the performance of the system. Will MySQL be able
to address the four processors and 8Gb of RAM. Will better performance
be achieved using 16Gb?

There are a few other options which are available and they include:

1. Xeon 3.2Ghz Processors (also dual core)?
2. 667Mhz Memory (2Gb Modules) instead of 533? expensive toys
3. Westan Digital makes 10000RPM SATA2 Drives in 74Gb and 150Gb (all
have 8Mb cache except for one model in the 150Gb range which has 16Mb
cache) - also expensive toys.

Would there perhaps be a benefit of running the OS on either the Web
Server or DB Server (or both) using the faster drives? Can't run the
database of these drives as I will run out of storage too quick.

Sorry for the long email, but some advice would be much appreciated
from anyone involved in server configs, set ups or any other
information!!!

Thank you

Gary