vbulletin and server load - a hosting question

[Apokalupsis]

I have a vb site that has 900 members (but perhaps only 150 active w/i 60 days) and 112,000 posts.

I recently disabled my Ajax vbShoutFULL Shoutbox (from vb.org) and Tufat's FlashChat due to "excessive" server load.

I am on a shared server atm. My host allows only for a 3% daily average cpu load. My site has a server load as per my host of around 5-8%.

Questions:

1) Is 3% server load limit low for a shared hosting company? After doing a bit of research, it appears to be pretty low...but I only looked at a few places.

2) Is 5-8% too high for a vb site w/ my stats?

3) When should a vb community move from a shared server to a dedicated server? My host said that a vb site with 3,000 members and 500,000 posts should definitely be on a dedicated server. I'm not there yet, and probably won't be for a few years...but I'm curious as to what the vb community's opinion and experience about this is.

Thanks in advance for any info.

FYI, my current host: http://resellers.lonex.com/index.php

Prospective hosts:

www.hostgator.com
http://www.hostdepartment.com
http://www.ipowerweb.com

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Also, any tips on optimizing vb to lower cpu load?

[KingSpade]

How many users do you have online at any given time (members & guests)?

In regards to the server load, what is acceptable would vary depending on the number of processors in the server. A single processor unit starts to become loaded at 1.0, a dual processor unit at 2.0 and those using the hyperthreading (where the CPU's are reported as double what they are) average at 4.0.

vBulletin can be optimized from a administrative side, although only so much can be done without further optimizing the server (i.e. MySQL, PHP and Apache).

You can start by moving your attachments out of the database and into file storage. You could also save the CSS for each style as a file instead of having it load with each page load (making sure to CHMOD /clientscript/vbulletin_css to 666 or 777 so it can be written to).


As for the time to make the move to a dedicated server, it really depends, again, on the users you are carrying online at once. For some, moving to a dedicated server with 100 users online is a must, others can hold out until 150-200 come online at once. You can't really judge it based solely on posts, threads and member count.

[Apokalupsis]

How many users do you have online at any given time (members & guests)?
Not many. Obviously it varies, but at peak perhaps about 20 or so?

In regards to the server load, what is acceptable would vary depending on the number of processors in the server. A single processor unit starts to become loaded at 1.0, a dual processor unit at 2.0 and those using the hyperthreading (where the CPU's are reported as double what they are) average at 4.0.[/quote]
The server has 4x Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz.




You can start by moving your attachments out of the database and into file storage. You could also save the CSS for each style as a file instead of having it load with each page load (making sure to CHMOD /clientscript/vbulletin_css to 666 or 777 so it can be written to).
I've converted attachments to the file system...I've CHMOD'd the vbulletin_css to 666....but I'm not sure how to save it as a file instead of having it load w/ each page. Is this an admin setting?



As for the time to make the move to a dedicated server, it really depends, again, on the users you are carrying online at once. For some, moving to a dedicated server with 100 users online is a must, others can hold out until 150-200 come online at once. You can't really judge it based solely on posts, threads and member count.
Well, I disabled the Ajax Shoutbox from vb.org and FlashChat (from www.tufat.com) and the server load decreased significantly. I enjoy those features (as does my community) however so I am looking for alternative hosts that have a higher load limit.

[bhd]

You won't find many web hosts prepared to give you more. I'm surprised your host allowed you to go as high as 8% in the first place. Think about it this way, you were using 8% of the total server resources. Put it differently, if every customer did that, your host would only be able to host about 15-20 sites like that. Unless you are paying at least 10% of the total server cost for your hosting that will put your host out of business.

Bottom line is that both vbshout and flash chat are very server intensive and shound not be used with more than just a few members online at once unless you have your own dedicated server.

Flaschat can also work in a different mode (using sockets) but it requires your host install some additional software. This will radically reduce load.