server hardware recommendations (the archives are dead)

I know this question has been asked before. I have seen it in the archives.
Unfortunately the archives are dead right now (any search will yield "no
results") and I need to make some decisions.

Can anyone give some general recommendations on hardware for a server
running Linux (RH6 or 6.1) and PostgreSQL? I estimate that there will be
about 2 GIG of data stored in the database initially, but this could grow as
high as 5 GIG in the future.

Since the db is not multithreaded, I assume that buying a dual processor
board and two processors would not be helpful to performance. Like any
database server, a lot of ram will be required for fast operation. I was
thinking at a minimum 256 meg of ram. I also want to have the database run
on a RAID 5 array for speed and fault tolerance. Any suggestions here for
disk type, RAID scheme (software or hardware), controller type, etc.? Any
rule of thumb on the "extra" disk space needed above raw storage space for
PostgreSQL operations (temporary tables, vacuum issues, etc)?

Any past experiences, benchmarks, guesses, or hearsay gladly accepted.
Thanks for your help.

- Adam



-------------------
Adam Rossi
President, PlatinumSolutions, Inc.
adam.rossi@platinumsolutions.com
http://www.platinumsolutions.com
P.O. Box 31   Oakton, VA 22124
PH: 703.352.8576  FAX: 703.352.8577