Hello, I own a vb fourm with 15Gigs of database and currently my server conf is CPU Phenom II X3 720 (3 x 2,8 Ghz) Memory 6 GByte DDR2 800 Harddisk 1 x 1 TB SATA II Network 1 GBit onboard And i am getting 20 - 25k uniques daily and the server load is more than 10. If the unique's increases the db server is getting crashed. Can any one suggest me do i have to take 2 servers 1 for db and the other for site?? Or do i just increase my memory?? PLease suggest me.
It's hard to say. It might be cheaper to get a faster disk system. 4No drives running RAID 10 will improve things dramatically, but you might also be reaching the limits of the CPU too. I'd say that the amount of RAM won't improve things too much and adding more at this time is likely to disappoint you. Separating your DB onto another server would definitly help, but it will be a more expensive choice. If you go for the separate DB server get RAID 10 on it and spec a decent server. If you do that you can leave your website server as it is, or if you have a little cash spare convert it to a RAID 1 (2 disks min). Since your web site will be mostly "read-only" RAID 1 will be fine and will give a performance boost again. Your host might be in a better position to help you. The can look at what the server is doing, see what is causing the most load at peak times, and give you better advice about what the best solution would be. I'd still say that more ram is unlikely to be useful so don't waste money on it.
Hello, Thanks for the reply...My host provider has determined the problem is with db only...as it is taking too much of RAM and there is no available memory for its queries and thus getting too many queries in locked state...and finally getting crashed. will RAID solve my problem or should i go for another DB server?? As i dont want to loose my traffic as in peak time the db server getting crashed. Again i have to check my db tables and start my mysql. Please help me.
Upgrading RAM (and if need be the server as a whole) is better than having a separate server for DB. It is not a good choice because as the requests to the DB will increase, it will slow down the website (you will also need to setup both the servers in LAN for faster access of DB). Also tweak the Mysql configuration a bit depending on what queries are executed the most and the time it takes to execute. It will definitely help in such condition.
Being that you have 6GB of RAM, what are the options involved with upgrading just the RAM? As long you are taking advantage of the 1GB card which it appears depending upon the connection they have you on, you should be able to handle requests fairly easily. Is the "800" for the DDR2 the speed? 800Mhz, if so, you could look at increasing the actual RAM speed and possibly the total amount of RAM too. Disk speed may help slightly too, although you are already running SATA2 so I would gather at least 7,200RPM but if you could get to 10K it might be better suited for you.
You have already stated your site is growing. I would say that having your MySQL server on its own is the best way to go. You may want to keep your current server for MySQL, and ask your host for a server with a little less power to serve up your web pages. You must ensure that the servers are directly connected to each other via a separate LAN card, or this will not work. There are many benefits by separating them. One being that now your MySQL server is just used for that, so any writing to the RAM or even to your hard disk, will be much quicker. The same goes for the web server, now that it does not have to deal with the high MySQL processes, it frees up the RAM and hard drive to do other things. Chris
The best options are (as already mentioned by RonBrown and RHS-Chris) 1. Go a dedicated MySQL server connected with web server via LAN. In a dedicated MySQL server, you'll be able to better tune the server according to the DB requirements. 2. RAID 10 will boost your performance. I had a huge improvement in performance for a client with RAID 0. But I recommend RAID 10 for you for reliability. Most of the times IO creates bottleneck as compared to RAM 3. Tune your MySQL configuration file.
Before making any drastic hardware changes, have you done any type of MySQL optimization? (As recommended above.)