BW and disk are easy, but how about proc/RAM on a dedicated/VPS server?

[Dennis B]

Hey,

I've been reading a few threads here at vB about dedicated/VPS server requirements, since I'm moving to either one of those soon.

We're currently hosted on a shared server that's overloaded and we're already beyond their BW allocation anyway and their dedicated servers are really expensive.

My forum is medium-sized, but growing 10-12% a month. We currently eat up about 600MB of disk space and 35GB of bandwidth every month. We have almost 3000 members.

I'm considering a dedicated or VPS server from servermatrix or liquidweb, but I'd like to know what the requirements for the server are. I read over at WHT that a 2.8 Celeron would not last long for me because of the huge number of database requests it would have to handle. In this case, is VPS also a concern? On the other side, would a dedicated server just be too much? I don't want to pay more than I need to, but as I said we're growing 10% a month and I don't want to have to move to a dedicated server in 3-4 of months again.

Bandwidth and disk space are pretty straightforward, but I don't see much advice around here on how to choose processor power and RAM.

Any advice would really be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Erwin]

Get the best specs you can afford as you will grow into it.

For something like vB, the more RAM the better. RAM is more important than the processor. I myself think hyperthreading CPUs are better - so a newer P4 or a Dual Xeon is preferable. There are some cheap deals at ev1servers or theplanet - I would pick one of the Dual Xeon offerings with at least 1 Gb RAM - how much can you afford? Also, if possible, go for a SCSI drive - you do not want your database to have an I/O bottleneck if you have nice CPUs and lots of RAM.

[Dennis B]

Thanks Erwin,

I was thinking a P4 3.0 HT with 1GB RAM for now with two 120GB IDEs to start with, and maybe change/upgrade them into SCSIs as needed. :) That's one of Liquidweb's starters. Servermatrix (The Planet) has a similar solution with less disk, both for under $200/mo, very reasonable, I guess.

Thanks again,

[Zachery]

The more ram the better, I've gone though some IO wait issues even on SATA drives. I've since moved from a single p4 (sata) to a dual xeon with scsi :)

The more ram you can put into the system the better off you are

[Erwin]

I recommend against EIDE drives and even SATA drives. Drive speeds are one consideration. Also, SCSI drives have their own dedicated processors lessening server load whereas EIDE drives and some SATA drives uses the server CPU which does seem to increase server loads. I found it made a huge difference when I trialed my database server with a fast EIDE drive vs a SCSI (even non-RAID) drive.

[eva2000]

Hey,

I've been reading a few threads here at vB about dedicated/VPS server requirements, since I'm moving to either one of those soon.

We're currently hosted on a shared server that's overloaded and we're already beyond their BW allocation anyway and their dedicated servers are really expensive.

My forum is medium-sized, but growing 10-12% a month. We currently eat up about 600MB of disk space and 35GB of bandwidth every month. We have almost 3000 members.

I'm considering a dedicated or VPS server from servermatrix or liquidweb, but I'd like to know what the requirements for the server are. I read over at WHT that a 2.8 Celeron would not last long for me because of the huge number of database requests it would have to handle. In this case, is VPS also a concern? On the other side, would a dedicated server just be too much? I don't want to pay more than I need to, but as I said we're growing 10% a month and I don't want to have to move to a dedicated server in 3-4 of months again.

Bandwidth and disk space are pretty straightforward, but I don't see much advice around here on how to choose processor power and RAM.

Any advice would really be appreciated.

Thanks!

going by choices at servermatrix something like

$139/mo
https://www.servermatrix.com/solutions/ss32_server.html

or

$169/mo
https://www.servermatrix.com/solutions/sx24_server.html

would be be a good start

you could start with 1GB of ram for first month to see how the load etc is going and see if you need to upgrade to 2GB later

if you do go with IDE drives make sure to 2x IDE drives on separate ide channels, where one drive is for OS/web and 1 drive solely for mysql data partition i.e. /var/lib/mysql

[Dennis B]

Eva, Erwin and Zachary, thanks a lot for your replies. :)

I must admit I didn't think I would need such a powerful server moving from shared hosting, but looking at my current server I feel sorry. :D

Here are some stats:

forums
cookie timeout = 900 sec
members = 3000
growth = 10%/month
max simultaneous users = 200
disk usage = 600 MB
monthly BW = 35 GB

current server (shared)
dual P3 1133 MHz 512KB cache
physical mem 3GB @ 100% utilization (updated @ 3:47 GMT)
disk swap 1GB @ 100% utilization (updated @ 3:47 GMT) :eek:
2 SCSI 34GB in RAID1
2 SCSI 8GB in RAID0
1 IDE 56GB
all filesystems take up ~76% of disk space
I don't know how many others are sharing this server with me, but from the server load averages... they're peaking @ 8-8-8 and don't go below 2-2-2.

I didn't realize how dramatically SCSIs would improve my performance.
At servermatrix it doesn't seem like I can get SCSIs anywhere.
At liquidweb I could go with this plan (http://www.liquidweb.com/dedicated/configure/Webmaster/Plan2/) with SCSIs but that would take me to a ~ $300 month bill, which is a bit over what I wanted to pay. But that's also cause they work with a $0 setup fee...

I understand perfectly that "the more, the better", but do you guys really think I could run into trouble soon with a cheaper solution like this one at liquidweb (http://www.liquidweb.com/dedicated/configure/Webmaster/Plan1/) or its approx. equivalent at servermatrix (https://www.servermatrix.com/solutions/ss30_server.html)? I wanted to start at the <$200/month level, but I could stretch it if my service quality would not improve from where it is today.

Thanks again.

[tormodg]

Did you go for either of these solutions? I am looking at the exact same plans.

[Dennis B]

Hi Tormod,

Yes, I got this plan (http://www.liquidweb.com/dedicated/configure/Webmaster/Plan1/) with liquidweb. Pretty happy so far. :)