Preserved Topic: Server/Db Choice Questions

I was wondering if I could get some opinions as to what a good server/database software setup would be for someone wanting to run a subscription site that would be most likely utilizing 20-40 Gigs of data transfer per month. Of course, tha main things I'm looking for are speed and stability.

I've been coding with ASP/VBScript in UltraDev, so that is what I'm accustomed to... but PHP could be doable if the learning curve isn't too steep. I guess I'm worried that if I step out of the Windows/ASP box, I'll get lost... but I'm impressed by the speed/stability that I've heard Linux/Apache/Etc have.

Again, any and all opinions are greatly appreciated.

I think around here you'll find pretty much fans of MySQL on the db side.

PHP is very well-suited to working with MySQL, and would probably be similar enough to VBScript for you to not feel entirely alienated the way you would if you switched to say Perl and DBI. PHP's learning curve is not steep at all compared to Perl. And it's fast (pooled db connections) and stable.

The PHP/MySQL combo tends to be pretty widely available with hosting companies because of its low cost--not just that it's free software, but it's stable and hence cheap to support.

yup what he said

just to reiterate too PHP has a plethora of built in functions which keep the learning curve really easy since a lot of the work is done for you

Walking the Earth like Kane

[This message has been edited by bitdamaged (edited 06-19-2001).]