So my friend and I got briliant ;) idea for a business. Since it is not predictable whether it will work out or not, we decided to keep cost as low as possible to start with, in particular not to hire anyone. If it will work out as expected it will generate enough profit to hire professionals in few months. But for the first few months we'll be doing everything by ourselfs. He's a business/finance major, and I'm a software developer, so obviously I have to take care of IT :) It will be a webapp, written in python/django.

My questions regarding this project:

1) What database should I choose? I'm experienced with oracle, and have been working with SQL Server for a while, but both of them are too expensive(at least now). It's a developer experience, I've never done any dba stuff. I'm looking for something free(as in beer). Looks like MySql or PostgreSQL are most popular in this sector. I would appreciate any comments on which db to choose. I'm open to any suggestions(it doesn't have to be MySql or Postgre). Here's what I know about data: It will be almost dates and numbers, a little bit of text. Searched mainly by dates. Data will almost never be updated, mostly inserted and browsed. From 30k to 300k new records/month.

2) Servers. My idea is to rent two dedicated servers. During normal operation one would be a web server(debian/apache), other would be a db server(debian/?). My recovery plan is to install everything on both, and in case of trouble with one of machines just run everything on the other one. Does it even makes sense?

Any other tips appreciated. Thanks.