Hi, I am planning to set up a Tech startup company that will provide web application solutions. Eventually we hope to diversify into different areas such as possibly social media or other services. For now we plan on running a high demand (from 1000 to 10,000 users in the first year) website running the application. This includes a MySQL database backend, email, and development servers.

My question is then, what type of server arrangement will work best, that is ti say should i have a small cluster of ultra high power machines (E.G. Top of the range Xeons, with 12GB RAM) or will it be better to have more less powerful servers load balanced?

Should I go for 1 - 2 u servers rack mounted ot would it be beter for it just to be tower servers for maintainability?

Finally I would also like to know what kind of Internet and router i would need, I currently have 10mbit down and barely 1 mbit up, but soon our area will have a fiber optic connection with international speeds of up to 25 mbit / sec.

Thanks in advance, RayQuang

UPDATE: sorry I forgot to mention it, the platform that I will be using is PHP with the APC code cache, Probably running Debian.