Cheap but efficient upgrade

[peach]

When my database driven sites will outgrow my server, what should I do to accomodate? What parts are most cost-efficient in taking more traffic?

 

[NtodaS]

I'd try first to save some bandwith on for example images and avatars of users, by setting up restricitons. There are a lot of ways to optimize your website for minimal bandwith usage without loosing quality

 

[a.titus1]

What specific area are you outgrowing? If you are running out of bandwidth, you might have to upgrade to a newer plan with more bandwidth. Alternatively you could try and tweak your pages to make them smaller so there is less data transfer per visitor (smaller images, etc.).

Diskspace or database space is a different issue. You can try and clean up your database (deleting older records no longer in use, redoing indexes). Really kinds of depends on where youre bottlenecking.

 

[peach]

no not those, but server load. You know when the green dot goes red on server load and pages take longer to begin downloading. I think it's because of too many db requests or something similar

 

[NtodaS]

You mean like to many visitors simultainiously? I think a bigger bandwith pack will cure this..

 

[peach]

You mean like to many visitors simultainiously? I think a bigger bandwith pack will cure this..

it has nothing to do with bandwidth, but server load.

 

[joe]

it has nothing to do with bandwidth, but server load.

You can set up a server for only database queries or setup a load balancer. Just going a step up in power is often fine too - like from Pentium 4 to Dual Xeons.

 

[NtodaS]

You can set up a server for only database queries or setup a load balancer. Just going a step up in power is often fine too - like from Pentium 4 to Dual Xeons.

Yah you probably need a faster server then. Or more memory perhaps to make it easier for the server to process bigger chuncks of data.

 

[joe]

RAM would be the cheapest and easiest upgrade. How much do you have right now? I find anything under 1GB to be far too little when running sites with extensive databases.

 

[V12Kid]

I agree, RAM will help and maybe a drive upgrade for the sql to parse faster

 

[Max]

Well, it may not be cost efficient, but I feel it's one of the best options. How about a database server?

 

[donn]

I'm still impressed that Markus from plenty of Fish says he built a site which makes 25k a day and runs on 4 servers. Wow!

 

[a.titus1]

They've gotta be some beefy servers. With a dating site hes gotta have some pretty significant server load.

 

[peach]

RAM would be the cheapest and easiest upgrade. How much do you have right now? I find anything under 1GB to be far too little when running sites with extensive databases.

I don't know, is there any page in cpanel that shows me this?
I already have 4cpus lol, maybe some ram would spice it up.

 

[Payton]

If your sites are db intensive then a common bottleneck will be your IO times. If you haven't already, consider a raid setup, go scsi if you can. If you don't want to throw a ton of money at the problem, it will probably be worth your time to narrow down what exactly the bottleneck is with your sites.

 

[peach]

If your sites are db intensive then a common bottleneck will be your IO times. If you haven't already, consider a raid setup, go scsi if you can. If you don't want to throw a ton of money at the problem, it will probably be worth your time to narrow down what exactly the bottleneck is with your sites.

I think the Drupal sites are fine, the pathauto module can cause some overhead, I bet the problem lies with the Joomla sites, it seems to load much slower then drupal at bad times.