I run a pretty popular website that runs Drupal on MySql.. Assuming the current configuration is tweaked about as much as it can be, which would be the better upgrade for best performance? 1) Upgrade from the current Pentium 4 2.8Ghz processor to a Intel "Duo 2" 2.4Ghz 2) Leave the processor alone, and upgrade the current 2GB to 4GB 3) Upgrade BOTH (duh) - but would it be worth the $$ ? Drupal tends to run a bit 'heavy' .. at peak times my CPU can shoot to 20% for short periods, but it usually averages around 0.5% - 1.5% usage.. Memory usage is usually around 45%-50%
20% and memory 50% would be noting to be concerned with, how many connections would that be ? Is the problem load times or... maybe you need to look at the amount images and scripts running in the background.
I think you have your answer in the last lines of your post. If drupal is CPU intensive then upgrade the cpu.
Hi Tearabite, My simple rule of thumb is MySQL eats memory and Apache eats CPU. The 20% CPU peak may be explained by the Drupal cron task rebuilding the search index (this can get very slow on a site with lots of new posts see http://drupal.org/node/88437). My advice would be to run the tuning primer script (http://www.day32.com/MySQL/) and see what that recommends. Btw, are you using MyISAM or Innodb as your storage engine? Petey
System specs seem ok. If your upgrading due to speed I would double check your bandwidth and pipe to the outside world.