I need advice regarding a simple, low-volume webserver.

Our society is bringing our web hosting in-house and I need to purchase my
hardware shortly. It's a relatively low-volume site, serving up +/- 20,000
or so sessions in a month (our society membership is < 9,000, so there's not
a lot of traffic to the site most days). What I'm looking at is:

- Windows 2000 w/ IIS (I know, I know, but I don't know command one of *nix
and really don't have time to play and learn)
- mostly static-content .cfm, with some data-driven pages (directories &
such)
- CFMX
- some mail server program (leaning towards iMail, but open for suggestions,
though must be easy to setup and maintain) for serving our office (a dozen
accounts) plus possibly other accounts for officers (so should have
POP/SMTP/whatever else)
- Dell server (I've had only great experiences with their hardware to date)

What do you recommend for RAM and HDD configuration? Besides "as much RAM as
possible..." Is 2 GB ok, or overkill if 1 GB would suit my requirements?
What level of RAID is necessary for a small server?

Do I need to go all-out with some tricked out rack-mounted web server
appliance, or would I do just fine with a solidly built Poweredge box?
Primary in my mind is keeping it as simple as possible, and the less it
costs, the happier I'll be (budget? what budget...) - I'm imagining
somewhere around $5,000 - $7,500 or so (is that even reasonable?). Also to
consider is that I'm one guy wearing several hats, so I just don't have the
time to learn Linux, cuddle a tempermental server, etc.

Any suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
James

James Mathieson
Information Systems Manager
The Wildlife Society
5410 Grosvenor Lane
Bethesda, MD  20814-2197
PH: 301-897-9770
Fax:  301-530-2471
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.wildlife.org/


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