Quote:
Originally Posted by kush
Here's some useful questions...
With dedicated servers, how do you know when you need hardware upgrades? How to differentiate server speed vs speed of your network's bandwidth?
How do you know the difference between needing more RAM, or maybe a faster processor?
What percent of memory do you want free during peak or average usage times?
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There are ways to tell exactly what your problems are and what needs to be done to fix them.
These things are fairly easy for a system administrator, but based on your posts I think you'd
need a sysadmin to check for you. The main tools are ssh, iostat, iotop, and top.
Most of the time, you don't actually NEED hardware upgrades, except if you run out of disk space.
Most of the time, you can instead choose to have a
qualified person make a few configuration
changes so you're not wasting the capacity you already have. On a typical web server we can
reduce load by about 70% by simply using a few correct settings.
With most web hosts, the person you talk does is not what I mean by a
qualified admin.
large hosts employ one or two people who really know what they are doing, plus a bunch of
people who have risen to the level of their incompetence. Small hosts normally do not have
a truly qualified sysadmin on staff, and instead call us or someone else as needed, if they
are forced to do so.
With modern processor speeds, most sites will be fine with any recent processor.
If you are overloading your CPU, it's almost always because of some really dumb MySQL/PHP,
where a PHP script is abusing the hell out of MySQL. Best to fix the script. More RAM is always
better. Linux will find ways to make use of any RAM you give it. You want a minimum of a GB.
4GB will handle most sites. If you need more than 4GB, your site is large enough for you to call
us and have us take a look at your actual system.