shawn
Well-known member
This is a bit of a spin-off from a discussion Slavik and I were having in another thread. I started wondering if maybe there's a better hosting solution out there for me. And with my yearly hosting bill coming due soon, there's no better time to think about it.
So... quick stats of my board and server:
Closing in on 1M posts
~350 peak users (incl visitors and bots)
Nginx w/Apache reverse proxy (little old school now that php-fpm has matured, but it works)
Mysql 5.1
PHP 5.2
APC opcode cache
~2GB ram
Centos 5
Self-hosted DNS, email, etc.
$1300/yr
We started out on shared hosting, moved on to a low-end VPS, upgraded the VPS periodically as we ran out of ram, finally got to the point where we were ok on ram, but had problems with disk I/O, so upgraded to a higher tier (hybrid) VPS with better hardware. We've been there for about 18 months.
Lately I've been seeing disk I/O wait cycles jumping up in the logs, but am waiting to move to XF (likely this coming weekend) and waiting for that change to shake out before making any decisions about hosting needs.
If we do need to upgrade, my first reaction is to add a second VPS and set up a dedicated DB server. I like the *idea* of VPS hardware. We've essentially been on the same vps installation since 2009, it's just moved from one physical server to another a few times. I have my doubts that a dedicated box, especially a low-end, consumer-grade box, would have lasted that long without needing a hard drive swapped out or a power supply replaced, etc. I've investigated cloud hosting, but its tough to get a handle on the actual costs up front, and frankly, some of the high-profile outages (and data loss) have scared me off of the whole idea.
I'm not looking for a 'deal'. I'm looking for the sweet spot where I'm getting the most value for the least money. Value is subjective and open to individual interpretation, though.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough about my own setup and prejudices. I'm curious to know what everyone else's are. I'm not looking to be right about this.... in fact, the earlier discussion brought to mind the possibility that I'm wrong about everything.
So what's your setup, and why?
So... quick stats of my board and server:
Closing in on 1M posts
~350 peak users (incl visitors and bots)
Nginx w/Apache reverse proxy (little old school now that php-fpm has matured, but it works)
Mysql 5.1
PHP 5.2
APC opcode cache
~2GB ram
Centos 5
Self-hosted DNS, email, etc.
$1300/yr
We started out on shared hosting, moved on to a low-end VPS, upgraded the VPS periodically as we ran out of ram, finally got to the point where we were ok on ram, but had problems with disk I/O, so upgraded to a higher tier (hybrid) VPS with better hardware. We've been there for about 18 months.
Lately I've been seeing disk I/O wait cycles jumping up in the logs, but am waiting to move to XF (likely this coming weekend) and waiting for that change to shake out before making any decisions about hosting needs.
If we do need to upgrade, my first reaction is to add a second VPS and set up a dedicated DB server. I like the *idea* of VPS hardware. We've essentially been on the same vps installation since 2009, it's just moved from one physical server to another a few times. I have my doubts that a dedicated box, especially a low-end, consumer-grade box, would have lasted that long without needing a hard drive swapped out or a power supply replaced, etc. I've investigated cloud hosting, but its tough to get a handle on the actual costs up front, and frankly, some of the high-profile outages (and data loss) have scared me off of the whole idea.
I'm not looking for a 'deal'. I'm looking for the sweet spot where I'm getting the most value for the least money. Value is subjective and open to individual interpretation, though.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough about my own setup and prejudices. I'm curious to know what everyone else's are. I'm not looking to be right about this.... in fact, the earlier discussion brought to mind the possibility that I'm wrong about everything.
So what's your setup, and why?