would a dedicated thttpd image server be good for me now ?

Hello, this is my current setup : 2 x pentium4 2.8ghz 1gig ram, acting as webserver for php scripts, and 1 dual xeon 2.4ghz 2gig ram, having the mysql database. The webservers also hold all images uploaded by my users, each ftp-ing new content to each other whenever something is added on one of the servers.

The load on my db server is quiet ok, but the load on one of my webserver can jump very high unexpectedly (to 600-900), and after 10 mins or so the other mostly starts getting high loads too. I guess that this is because of the ftp-actions they do to eachother, and that it makes them too dependent on eachother. So if one goes down, it takes the other with him.

I've been looking around for solutions , and one of the things I came across was a dedicated image server with thttpd, wich should replace all the image dirs on the webservers. It falls within the budget, and I dont need to make big changes to my site for this, but I'm still not very convinced would a dedicated thttpd image server be good for me now ?

Would an image server take away a lot of load from the webservers ? From what I found , some say it does and others say it doesnt. An average page on my site has about 10-20 unique images (userpics, avatars), and about 10 commonly used images (smileys, icons). Is this enough to justify an image server ?

And what specs would I need ? I'm looking at a pentium4 2.4ghz with 512 ram running debian, a simple server from the same company I have my other servers with.

Any suggestions are welcome, I just want to make sure I would be taking the right path with this, as I never used a dedicated image server before would a dedicated thttpd image server be good for me now ?

 

 

 

 

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