Should I upgrade to a managed dedicated server?

[dailypress]

Hello all,

I have several websites hosted on a shared network and every once in a while I notice that either the server goes down (because of other websites on the network according to customer service) or the download time is decreased substantially (for some other reason).

I have one drupal site that hosts 8,000 pictures and another drupal site that hosts 6,000 images and 200 videos. I barely update these sites anymore (hence why I use the Cache and CSS Optimizing features that Drupal has under Admin >> Performance.) They each have about 500-1,000 unique visitors/day mostly generated from search engines.

I have about a dozen other websites as well, all ranging from 10-100 static HTML pages with (50 - Several hundred) visitors/day.

In short I think I manage about a total of 3-4K visitors/day however, use several CMS such as WordPress, Drupal, etc...


Anyway, im starting a Video Chat website and the script that im installing says the following:

1- Peer to Peer Streaming! No Media Server Required! Chat Clone utilizes adobe's new peer to peer streaming so you don't have to waste money on a expensive media server!

2- Almost No Bandwidth Usage! Because Chat Script runs on peer to peer streaming you do not use any bandwidth to stream the webcams!

My question is, if this site picks up, do I need to upgrade my server? Do I upgrade now or should I wait and see whether or not the site picks up? Considering that I am already running into problems such as slow download speed and server crashes what do you recommend?

When did you upgrade to a dedicated server? Was the amount of traffic a factor? Or was slow download time and security the reason for upgrade. What factors do we need to consider before an upgrade?

[brotherhood of LAN]

In a word, yes. If you can afford to. A semi-dedicated/VPS option may be suitable for you as the sites don't sound uber-traffic-heavy... but the responsiveness of a dedicated server with hardware totally dedicated to your sites may be appreciated by your users.

Having your own server allows you to do pretty much anything you can do on your desktop, i.e. install anything. I have konquerer installed on my dedicated server taking screenshots for instance. I wouldn't be able to install that on a shared hosting setup.

Be sure to shop around for your hosting solution. Having done the same recently, I've found prices can vary wildly.

[dailypress]

im not very familiar with running my own server (aka taking screenshots etc...) therefore will have to get a Managed Dedicated Server.

I found a few companies through different posts ranging from $69-$249/mo. Any recommendations on:

CPU RAM Hard Disk Bandwidth ?

[brotherhood of LAN]

If you're a WebmasterWorld supporter I'd offer a few public suggestions for hosts in the webhosting issues [webmasterworld.com] forum...

WebmasterWorld recently migrated to a dedicated server using liquidweb as described by Brett here [webmasterworld.com], it looks to be around $250 a month, which is a fairly competitive price but there is cheaper out there. You may just want to take a couple of hours searching and comparing hardware/reputation against price.

For $250/month

- CPU
Quad core or higher seens to be about right. Most of the time my main concern is hard disk speed and CPU's are rarely maxed out.

- RAM
I'd expect 8GB as a minimum. Although I've rarely used the CMS's you use, I know they use MySQL. You could dedicate a portion of your memory for MySQL to retain indexes which would speed up queries dramatically.

- Disk
RAID options seem to be getting more popular and can offer good speed benefit. Disks tend to be the main bottleneck for speed, particularly for database driven apps. Solid state disks offer a lot of benefit though they're rarely offered in 'out in the wild' dedicated servers.

- Bandwidth
I have a 1Gbps connection and a 10TB limit. If I reach that limit I'm redueced to 10Mbps, which is unlikely. Dedicated servers tend to offer very generous bandwidth allowances and add-ons whereas shared hosting tend to penalise you heavily for going over the limit. 100Mbps connection would be a good start.

Also consider which country you want to be hosted in.

I think your CMS's will benefit most from a RAM increase and a bigger bandwidth pipe. Hopefully that helps a bit.

[dailypress]

Thank you very much for your response. As you suggested i am currently doing some research on the companies.

I would like to be hosted in the US for sure. :)

[Pjman]

I would go it Vps and use a company that will b able to update u to a dedicated server on the fly. I use wired tree because they do that for me all the time. I'll have two or three sites takeoff and the ramp me up to a dedicated with zero downtime and ip changes. This really helps if you run email newsletter lists.