I am about to create a PHP web project that will be consisting of a large database. The database will be MYSQL and will store more than 30000 records per day. To optimize the DB I thought to use MEMCACHED library with it. Am i going the correct way or some other alternative can be used to overcome the data optimization problem. I just want to provide faster retrieval and insertion. Can somebody advise me which tool should I use and how, as the data will gradually increase at a higher rate ? Should i use object relational mapping concept too ?
You can use Master & Slave technique for this purpose. Basically it would be combination of 2 db first for read operation and other for write operation.
I'd side with @halfer and say he's right about the test data. At least you'll know that you're not trying to optimize something that doesn't need optimizing.
On top of test data you'll also need some test scenarios to mimic the traffic patterns of your production environment, that's the hard part and really depends on the exact application patterns: how many reads versus writes versus updates / per second.
Given your number (30k) you'd average out at about 3 inserts / second which I'd assume even the cheapest machines could handle with ease. As for reads, a years worth of data would be just under 11M records. You may want to partition the data (mysql level or application level) if look ups become slow but I doubt you'd need to with such relatively small volumes. The real difference maker would be if the # of reads is 1000x more than the number of inserts, then you could look into what @ram sharma suggested and set up a replicated master-slave model where the master takes all the writes and the slaves are read-only.
Memcached is a powerful beast when used correctly and can turn a slow DB disk read into a blazing fast memory read. I'd still only suggest you look into it IF the DB is too slow. Adding moving parts to any application also adds potential failure points and increases the overall complexity.
EDIT: as for the use of an ORM, that's your choice and really won't change a thing concerning the DB's speed although it may add fractions of milliseconds to the end user.. usually worth it in my experience.
Cheers --