Which server would be my best option?

[LanciaStratos]

I'm looking into several servers right now, all from RackShack. There is a big difference in price, however, and I'm not sure if the most expensive option would provide enough extra performance to warrant the cost. So, that is my question for you experts: which server would give me the most bang for my buck? All of the servers are in my price range, however I do want to spend as little as possible while still getting the best performance out of my website and forum.

Server 1:
Intel Celeron 1.3 Ghz
1 GB of RAM
60 GB hard drive
$109/month

Server 2:
Intel Celeron 1.7 Ghz
1 GB of RAM
60 GB hard drive
$119/month

Server 3:
Intel Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz
1 GB of RAM
80 GB hard drive
$139/month

Server 4:
Intel Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz
1.5 GB of RAM
(2) 80 GB hard drives
$159/month

[Brian Briscoe]

Well, I have only heard bad things about Celeron Processors... So, I myself would most likely go with A Pentium Processor.

I also think Plan 3 should do you fine, what do you intend on using the server for?

[LanciaStratos]

Well, I have only heard bad things about Celeron Processors... So, I myself would most likely go with A Pentium Processor.

I also think Plan 3 should do you fine, what do you intend on using the server for?Thanks for your feedback, it is much appreciated. I only plan on using the server for my own website with a vBulletin forum, and a few other small personal family sites.

[Brian Briscoe]

Well, it seems like Plan 3 should suit you fine then.

You might also want to wait for eva2000's feedback, hes quite the expert on this kind of stuff. ;)

Have Fun with your server!

[Raz Meister]

I personally would recommend #1.

All that really matters is your RAM. I very much doubt you will notice the difference in CPU speed.

[Brian Briscoe]

I personally would recommend #1.

All that really matters is your RAM. I very much doubt you will notice the difference in CPU speed.
Yes, true, you do have a point Raz Meister...

[LanciaStratos]

Brian, what kind of disadvantages have you heard about Celeron processsors?
I personally would recommend #1.

All that really matters is your RAM. I very much doubt you will notice the difference in CPU speed.Thank you for your comments. You do not think the extra 500 MB in #4 is worth the extra $50/month?

[Brian Briscoe]

Well, I have heard from someone, I cant really recall who, but he said the processors have the tendency to become unstable... He said it sometimes cannot handle the load... But who knows... I myself have never had any first hand experience with Celerons...

[eXtremeTim]

Well, I have heard from someone, I cant really recall who, but he said the processors have the tendency to become unstable... He said it sometimes cannot handle the load... But who knows... I myself have never had any first hand experience with Celerons...

What i have heard is that they have a tendency to not run to speed. If you ask me i would proble go with number 4 if you have the extra 20 bucks. If not then number 3 will do you just fine. Only reason im even saying number 4 is becuase of the extra ram and the other hard drive will allow you to use it as a backup hard drive so if your main drive crashes your not screwed.

[Raz Meister]

You do not think the extra 500 MB in #4 is worth the extra $50/month?It really depends on how busy your server is, and how many requests are being made per second.

But generally #1 should be able to handle (on a properly optimized server) around 200 vB users online.

What might help is if you tell us what server you are on currently and some stats (i.e. load average, swap usage, request per second etc)

[Dave#]

Celerons are yucky, has to be pentium innit

[TheForumHost.com]

my input... Cel's lag for forums.. go p3 or AMD, $50 a month for 512 RAM is high, though you want all the RAM you can get.. $20 is the standard price... and lastly.. why do you want to host in a shack? :) Shop around. RS is cheap, but you get what you pay for. Just because they are big does not mean they are better....

[Raz Meister]

RS are good if you can handle your own server.

Also Celly's do not lag as is being suggested. We're currently using one and we usually have 100+ people on the forums and MANY more on the main site and we haven't experienced any problems or slowness.

[eva2000]

server #4 would be my pick.. no celeries!

[Raz Meister]

Do you have a reasoning behind your choice, I'm curious.

[eva2000]

#3 and #4 have cpus with large L2 caches which database servers will benefit from.. #4 has 2 drives which you can set up 1 as OS/web files and 1 for mysql database itself .. helps especially if the 2 drives are on separate ide channels if not doesn't make a difference then choose #3

[LanciaStratos]

It really depends on how busy your server is, and how many requests are being made per second.

But generally #1 should be able to handle (on a properly optimized server) around 200 vB users online.

What might help is if you tell us what server you are on currently and some stats (i.e. load average, swap usage, request per second etc)Right now I'm on an AMD Duron 1 Ghz server with 512 MB of RAM and a 20 GB hard drive (hosted by RackShack). My vB forum has anywhere between 100-250 users online per day, and with a forum database above 1.2 GB it really gets bogged down and I only have several GB's left on my hard drive. You can see some of my server's current stats here (http://www.gtplanet.net/misc/mysqlinfo.php).

my input... Cel's lag for forums.. go p3 or AMD, $50 a month for 512 RAM is high, though you want all the RAM you can get.. $20 is the standard price... and lastly.. why do you want to host in a shack? :) Shop around. RS is cheap, but you get what you pay for. Just because they are big does not mean they are better....Thanks for your input. I know there are many better options for hosting out there, but I've been with RS for almost 2 years now and don't have many complaints. I need a lot of bandwidth and quite a bit of power, and RS is really the only option that's in my price range.

#3 and #4 have cpus with large L2 caches which database servers will benefit from.. #4 has 2 drives which you can set up 1 as OS/web files and 1 for mysql database itself .. helps especially if the 2 drives are on separate ide channels if not doesn't make a difference then choose #3Thanks for your input, eva, I really value what you have to say. It's good to know that databases benefit from the L2 cache on the P4's.

[Raz Meister]

There is something wrong with your current server.

You only have 21 connections to the server and a mere 14 queries per second (thats about 1 vb page a second). And your load average is 5+!!

Post your top details as it looks like something else is running and consuming your resources.