What Should Server Load Averages Be?

[CygnusFTK]

Right now:
21.63 28.16 29.29 | 89 Users Online (10 members and 79 guests)

Is this high? What does everyone else see on the regular? These are actually lower than normal for my site. We push over 100 Users Online regularly and see load go up into the low 40s which seems REALLY high.

So what should it be?

[Zachery]

Server load averages, are for the ENTIRE server. Are you the only site on the entire server?

[CygnusFTK]

I am not, I am guessing. Shared server. Very good information to know about it being the ENTIRE server. Did not know that.

[Wayne Luke]

Looks about right for shared hosting. A little low actually. I've seen servers in the 100s for load averages.

A 1 in your load average means that the server (not you) is using 100% of a single CPU core. Modern servers have 4-8 cores and hyperthreading doubles that. So with a octo-core machine, 16 means that your CPU it at 100% utilization. If you have multiple CPUs than a 16 could mean 50% utilization or even 25%. In essence what your load average tells you is entirely dependent on your server.

My VPS has 8 quad-core CPUs with hyperthreading so it needs to reach 64 before it is at 100% CPU utilization.

Are your forums slower than usual?

[CygnusFTK]

I personally do not find them slower than the 3.8.7 I had running a month or so back. My users complain about the site being slower than molases.

I have asked them to test the speed of the site by telling me how long it takes to load the home page, a main forum page, a thread, back to home, to the member list, etc. and report their times. Just posted this so will let you know when I see a post from them and what the load times are at the time of their test.

Thanks!

[CygnusFTK]

Here's one from 7 minutes ago:

Home Page: ~5 seconds total load time.
1 Level Down (time to get from main page to Disc Golf board under Disc Golf Topics): ~2 seconds
A Thread on the Above Board: ~17 seconds
Back to Main Page: ~3 seconds
To Members List: ~5 seconds

Server Load Averages right now:
24.40 24.26 26.03 | 96 Users Online (15 members and 81 guests)