Specs for a Web Server?

I need some suggestions here guys.

I am an Admin to a non-computer related BB and we are currently on EZ BB. I'm getting pretty fed up with the crappy bandwidth and everything else related to EZ and I'm considering buying my owner server machine to host the BB.

I could buy a 1U P4 1.8 server with 512 Mb RAM and 40GB HD for $600 (used).

OR, I could build my own.

If I were to build my own, I'd like to keep the cost as minimal as possible. I'd also like to use AMD as the CPU is much cheaper. I was considering the DUAL AMD MSI MoBO, but the cost would be about $700.

Would a single CPU suffice? Say a XP1700 T-Bred B? If so, I could use a RAID card and run RAID 0 or RAID 1.

Opinions?

that p4 sounds good , what will you be using it for ? and will it have much traffic ?

I'll be running a BB on it. I'll probably use the same software as Overclockers or UBB.

The bandwidth will be minimal compared to OC.com though.

well I dont think you'll need a raid 0 setup but you can always do that

The $600 box looks good. You don't need an extremely powerful box unless you plan to have alot of traffic.

If you were to build, I would get the duly board, but only put 1 cpu into it (you can add the other one later). I would definately go RAID 1..

Any other suggestions, comments?

Is it for critical webserving, ie: mission critical business use, or a just for fun kind of thing or what?

If it's just for fun, you can use almost any machine. My K6-2 200Mhz server box runs a low-traffic webserver (and image hosting). It also has MySQL installed and runs a few private, low-traffic databases.

If it's low traffic as in a few to a couple hundred hits a day, this kind of setup is fine. If your talking a few thousand hits a day, you might want something a little stronger, like a P2 or so. Once your database grows, you'll need stronger than that for searches and database requests.

We have about 1300 members and average about 600 MB of bandwidth a day. The Bandwidth is small compared to OC.com.

It sounds like even a regular desktop ( XP1700) running Linux would do it.

Yeah that sounds reasonable. You could add another processor when you need it (just make sure you can get a processor of the same make/model/stepping+-1) when you want to upgrade it to a duly, or just build it as a duly.