I would do a 17 gig scsi hardrive, with p4 Ht or dual Xeon. 1 Gig of ram should be fine but maybe 2 gigs if your drive is having problems.
Then connect to this server remotly for all your MySQL connections.
This will free up the main server which is hopfully a p4 HT or better with 2 gigs of ram for the search.

good luck with it.