boosting web-server performance maybe 200%?!

[all420]

The other day, I was thinking about the new Uber Rig that I am building. Because is has massive processing power, ram, etc. the limiting factor is definatly my HDD's, even though I was planning to use ULTRA SCSI-2 drives in a RAID configuration. I was thinking of the best way to increase my drive performance without costing more then I was already spending. Being into Linux, I remebered ramdisks. They allow you to make the OS believe that a chunk of your ram is really a HDD (this feature is built into Linux, but there is a prog out for Windows called NTramDisk). Because ram is drastically faster then even the best HDD's, it offers incredible performance. Disk I/O is the slowest part of almost any computer. Therefore, if I had a system with maybe 4 gigs of ram, and make a ramdisk 3 gigs big, would this increase the performance of my server? I know that this would be best for a static web site, but wouldn't a ramdisk raise the limiting factor many fold?
Is this not possible? Is it not worth it (the site would not be larger then 3 gigs)? Are there any problems with my reasoning? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[blebs99]

I don't know about the rest of what you are going to do, but the RAM drive is only going to be there as long as you don't restart the server. I take it you know that already, and have a back up plan devised.
Sounds like a good idea. Whether it's possible or not, I'm not sure. Sounds like an idea that's worth trying anyway. :D

[PolyPill]

What the hell kind of a web server are you planning on running that needs that much speed?!?! unless you've got 10,000+ hits a day this is just the most over kill I've ever heard. It's like bringing a tank to a water gun

Your bottle neck isn't your comp, it's your connection.

[rugby]

I've got an OS X server, dual 533 G4 with 768mb of ram and moderately fast scsi drive. It runs apache for web and Communigate Pro for email and it MAYBE hits 10% usage, and we have 300+ people leaving email open all day long and it runs the district web/ftp. What you propose is overkill, but would be fun to play with.

[PolyPill]

I would think the best thing for speed in linux for a webserver would be to use the apache module in the 2.4 kernel, but this is experimental. Some experimantal modules are pretty stable some aren't, I haven't tried this one but it's worth a shot.