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Looking to optimize my server [Advice needed] (12)

12-11-2012 02:18 PM #1 machix (Member)
Looking to optimize my server [Advice needed]

I've been using a dedicated server with Liquidweb for a couple of years. Didn't think too much of it, till I read this thread about server optimization.

So I hit up my LQ rep, and he gave me a few proposals/quotes.

My Current Server:


Total Price: $307.00/month


Option 1:

Monthly Fee: $269.00/month

As you can see with this selection we double the amount of processor cores
that would be available by moving to a quad-core processor from a dual core.
Each core would also be quite a bit faster as you would be moving to a more
modern CPU. The RAM would also be faster as it would be running on the newer
DDR3 as opposed to DDR2. The hard drives are also double the capacity of what
you currently have allowing you plenty of room to grow.

The one area where this server is less than what you currently have is the
total bandwidth available. Your server right now comes with 12TB of bandwidth
where this would have half that at 6TB


Option 2:

Monthly Fee: $324.00 /month

This second option would be more than you are paying right now each month and
is mostly similar to the quote I gave you above but with one key difference.
In place of the Dual SATA RAID 1 drives this server would have Dual Solid
State Drives. The three things that can effect the performance of a server
most in terms of hardware would be the speed of the CPU, the speed and
capacity of the RAM and the speed of the hard drive. This change addresses the
hard drive speed directly. Solid state drives can offer vastly improved read
and write speeds for your server which should result in much better
performance. One area where SSD excels would be with any databases that are
constantly accessing the disks.


Option 3:

Monthly Fee: $329.00 /month

This third option is a little different and is added to this to serve as more
of a comparison for you. This server features Dual CPUs each with 4 cores. The
rest of the specifications for this server would be similar the the one you
have now other than the extra CPU and RAM. I include this to give you the
opportunity to see where you could go with this server down the road. With
this configuration you could still add things like Dual SSD for your primary
drives or extra RAM for an additional cost. If you click on any of the links I
am putting under these servers you will see that you can actually do further
configuration of the hardware to find something that might fit exactly what
you are looking for.


If the traffic on your sites increases to the point where even these servers
would not be sufficient we can talk more about going to a load balanced
solution or even a cluster of servers. With those types of options you can
expect the price to increase by quite a lot as well however we do have the
expertise to design a more complex solution that would be tailored precisely
to your needs when that time comes.

---

I can't tell the difference between all these servers TBH!
But this is what I will be running:

202 tracking (web media buys)
mobile traffic
Popups (not yet, but I intend to run a lot of traffic via pops)


Should I be picking any of the options above?
Do you know of better server setups that I should use?
Appreciate your advice!

12-11-2012 09:06 PM #2 BeyondHosting-Tyler (Member)

Option 1:
Disk are junk, slow and old.
Not enough ram.

Option 2: Same issue, using sata drives as primary, you want pure ssd storage if available.
Not enough ram.

Option 3:
Old school cpu, not very fast per core, meaning sql will suffer as mysql is a single threaded application for most tracker needs.
Still not enough ram.

What you want for your hardware.

Pure SSD Storage, something in raid 1 or raid 10 depending on the number of disk.
Lots of ram, no less than 8GB
Fast cpu cores, nothing slower than 2.4 Ghz on a xeon 5X series, the E3 stuff is very fast.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with that model SSD they listed but from what we've tested CrucialSSD seem to be on the low side of performance and reliability, im sure they are cheap and that's why they are chosen, LW does whitebox servers so price > quality.

Their comment on load balancing is false for affiliate marketing, your database is what does not scale, web serving performance is RARELY and issue with modern web server software... nginx/litespeed... whatever your fancy is.

12-11-2012 09:26 PM #3 cyrusl (Member)

It seems a little wonky to talk about optimizing your server without a discussion of it's current performance. That is, if you don't know how fast you currently are, how can you tell if you're getting any faster? I would start by implementing NewRelic and seeing what kind of response times you have.

After that, the next discussion should be about where you bottlenecks are. People usually don't make decisions about processors, RAM, and storage in isolation. They usually know what subsystem of their backend is the bottleneck and work specifically to fix it. Once you know how fast you're going, and you know what's keeping you from going faster, then you can work on implementing the change.

12-11-2012 09:54 PM #4 BeyondHosting-Tyler (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by cyrusl View Post
It seems a little wonky to talk about optimizing your server without a discussion of it's current performance. That is, if you don't know how fast you currently are, how can you tell if you're getting any faster? I would start by implementing NewRelic and seeing what kind of response times you have.

After that, the next discussion should be about where you bottlenecks are. People usually don't make decisions about processors, RAM, and storage in isolation. They usually know what subsystem of their backend is the bottleneck and work specifically to fix it. Once you know how fast you're going, and you know what's keeping you from going faster, then you can work on implementing the change.
You can't polish a turd, his cpu is from 2005. This means at least 2 of the main components in his server are already becoming extremely outdated. Its not just *speed* that matters, cpu features such as SSE4 are very important. If he has a modern OS and any sort of database his 2gb of ram is already pegged to.

I don't think you should look at the existing hardware and see if its really the problem, start with something at least MODERN then go for that.

12-11-2012 10:03 PM #5 cyrusl (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by BeyondHosting-Tyler View Post
Its not just *speed* that matters, cpu features such as SSE4 are very important.
I don't think I ever implied that CPU clock speed is important. Rather, the opposite: page load time is the only thing that matters.

Quote Originally Posted by BeyondHosting-Tyler View Post
I don't think you should look at the existing hardware and see if its really the problem, start with something at least MODERN then go for that.
If he doesn't know how fast he is right now, how will he have any idea if the new hardware even did anything? You're talking to a guy who got curious after reading one thread about server optimization and telling him he needs a machine with SSDs. The vast majority of web servers don't have SSDs. How would we even know if his machine has a disk i/o bottleneck?

12-11-2012 10:38 PM #6 jonemd (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by cyrusl View Post
Last edited by cyrusl; Today at 11:28 PM. Reason: making myself sound less like an asshole
Love your reason for editing ;-)

12-11-2012 11:38 PM #7 BeyondHosting-Tyler (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by cyrusl View Post
I don't think I ever implied that CPU clock speed is important. Rather, the opposite: page load time is the only thing that matters.
Regardless of what his application is, all servers benefit from a 14ms (7200rpm) drop in disk latency to sub 1ms (ssd). I don't care of your hosting grandmas bakery site, ms is ms and ms with a database is a HUGE improvement.

Quote Originally Posted by cyrusl View Post
If he doesn't know how fast he is right now, how will he have any idea if the new hardware even did anything? You're talking to a guy who got curious after reading one thread about server optimization and telling him he needs a machine with SSDs. The vast majority of web servers don't have SSDs. How would we even know if his machine has a disk i/o bottleneck?



Hes an affiliate marketer and hes trying to make money... using antique technology is like buying a 1990 car now and expecting it to still be reliable like a new one provided you still drive it at the same speed...

I appreciate you trying to help but telling him his hardware is probably just fine is silly, I bet hostgators babycroc plan outperforms that thing lol.

12-12-2012 12:19 AM #8 machix (Member)

Thanks guys for the insights.
It's true that I don't know how fast/slow I currently am – Just been focused on running campaigns and neglecting the server side all this while.

12-12-2012 12:41 AM #9 zeno (Administrator)

Seriously though, $300/month is ridiculous for that old box. Do places like LiquidWeb not force upgrades/replacements when things get so outdated... I mean, a netbook is about the only thing with only 2 GB of RAM in it these days, and the Athlon X2 have been dinosaurs for a looooong time.

12-12-2012 12:53 AM #10 machix (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by zeno View Post
Seriously though, $300/month is ridiculous for that old box. Do places like LiquidWeb not force upgrades/replacements when things get so outdated... I mean, a netbook is about the only thing with only 2 GB of RAM in it these days, and the Athlon X2 have been dinosaurs for a looooong time.
Exactly – that was what I asked my guy yesterday as well!
And he gave some crap reason like they have so many clients so they dont go around upgrading everyone.

Well, I could have paid more attention to it too, instead of putting it off till now.

12-12-2012 12:55 AM #11 machix (Member)

@Tyler,
Could you PM me about what your company can offer?

12-12-2012 01:13 AM #12 BeyondHosting-Tyler (Member)

Hi Machix, to abide by forum policy's you will have to PM me. I do not invade anyones privacy with pms.

Thanks :-)

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