How to choose server hardware?

[Krylovech]

I know a lot about PC hardware, but I don't know a lot about server hardware, I know only manufacturers: Cisco, IBM, Intel; that they have more than 2 processors and "big" RAM). :)​

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I need to choose servers for a one firm, for a one project: server for mysql (database, etc), for Web-server (only for PHP-scripts) and for static Web-FTP server (to upload files by FTP, by PHP in the web folder, to have access from the Internet).​

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Firm need at first a not very "strong" servers, but if their "business" will thrive (maybe, why not) they will need stronger servers.​

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In the Internet I can see articles about game-servers. :D And not a lot of what I need. So, can you help me with choosing this servers? Or with getting information about server hardware.​

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Thank you. :) ​

 

[Wildcard]

Hi,
You can ideally make a server out of just about any computer. The best suggestion I can give is to determine what you need to be able to do with the server, then research the software out there that can do what you need (MS server 2008, linux, etc). Once you know what software you will run, see what the minimum requirements are to run that operating system, then base that as a starting point for your hardware. You can buy premade servers from Dell that are tower units that could probably be used as a web server and are less than 500 dollars from what I have seen. Linux is free, and with a little bit of time you can make a web server or ftp server with pretty low system requirements. I found an article that talks about basic hardware for a server, and it sounds like for a web server the most important piece is ram. Here is the article I found :

http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_best_webserver_hardware_configuration.htm