Need a lightning fast server
 

I've been on a dedicated server from The Planet for 2 or 3 years. Here are the specs:

QTYHardware Component
1Dell \ Single socket 1067FSB - Quad Core Capable \ PowerEdge 8401Intel \ 2.4 GHz 1066FSB - Conroe \ Xeon 3060 (Dual Core)2Generic \ 2 GB RAM \ DDR2 667 ECC4Western Digital \ 250GB:SATA2:7200RPM (x4) \ WD2500JS13Ware \ 4 channel SATA2 \ 9550SX-4LP

Installed Software
cPanel, Inc. cPanel STABLE- Urchin Urchin 5- CentOS Enterprise Linux - OS ES 4.0

Even though it's pretty hefty, I think it's sluggish. I need pages to load instantly (using broadband, of course). Does anyone have any suggestions for a lighting fast server for $300-$400/month?

You can check out my site speed here:
www.churchmedia.net

Thanks! :)

You should drop that cpanel crap.

I had that same machine running lighttpd and it went really fast until our traffic forced us to upgrade.

What do you use? Plesk? Ensim? I'm not married to cPanel.

I suggest you start by posting in the Server Configuration forum on vbulletin.com.

Greetings Churchmedia

It does seem a bit sluggish switching between topics...not terrible but not the quickest. There was a recent topic about using caching that would probably speed up your site quite a bit.

2MB RAM? I would think that is 2Gigabytes of RAM :)

Are your 4 SATA drives in a RAID configuration?

If you have quite a few visitors you may want to consider doing a server cluster.

cPanel is very full functional but at the same time, it eats up a good amount of RAM.

Do NOT get rid of CPanel. I have tried the others and CPanel is the easiest one to get around in. And CPanel is the only one I have not have probelms with email after setting up the accounts in it.

Why would you need cpanel if you run a 1 server -> 1 forum?

I'd understand that if you hosted more sites but if the only account is admin's, then you could tamper with configuration yourself via SSH.

I have a few more smaller personal sites on the server.

True, but updating or adding modules is a snap in CPanel. On the old server, I reset MySQL a few times when we were having problems. CPanel made it all easy to deal with.

I've used Ensim and cPanel. I've been really happy with cPanel. I like the structure and features better than Ensim. I'm only an intermediate when it comes to server management. When I get in over my head there is a 16 year old kid from Seattle that helps me out. :)

As far as server optimization, I've already done that through vBulletin.com.

it doesn't matter how many domains you have on a server, if you learn some easy apache configuration, then you can do it manually... those crappy control panels hog about half your resources. I've helped many people "wean" themselves off the panels.... and now they're happily engaged in day-to-day SSH administration :)

Well I'm always up for leaning something new. I honestly don't even access my site's cPanel except to make email changes. How would I go about learning? Does dumping the control panel improve the php page's speed (in other words, do the pages go through cPanel somehow)?

Well the biggest downside to cpanel is it loves to eat memory. It runs a few different monitoring programs and things that will suck your memory dry. You can disable a lot of these, and it should help your performance. Making sure its configured for best performance should help a lot but if your still having trouble with it being laggy upgrading the CPU may help. PHP scripts use a lot of CPU power to run.

Perhaps a Core2Quad Q6600 2.4GHz with 4GB ram would help, cost ya about 230/month including cpanel and everything.

No the pages do not go "through" cpanel. Its just the programs I mentioned above that it runs in the background that chips away at your ram and even cpu at times.

Yeah I can refer you to someone that can configure a better server than that. PM me.

Also just add RAM. That is a nice configuration but the Conroe is not a server optimized CPU.

Also your page loads fine here so it might be something on your ISPs end not your server end.

I would consider moving to lighttpd or nginx. Personally I use lighttpd with XCache installed and I am on a less powerful server than you (1GB RAM and C2D E4500) and all my pages load instant.

cPanel is certainly bloated and not needed if you're only running a few sites. Directadmin, LXAdmin are all lighter in the pants. H-Sphere control panel actually resides outside your server.

When browsing your site, it doesn't feel like it's been optimized. At your next hosting company, perhaps you can find a host that will assist you in getting your vBulletin optimized...I think you'll get more bang out of your buck that way.

Yeah, it's self managed right now and I'm not a server-guru.

This is good info, everyone! Thanks!

DirectAdmin sucks for setting up mail and having it actually work. I have never had any problems in the past with mail from the site with CPanel, but ever since the went to DirectAdmin (against my advice, by the way) it has been a freakin' nightmare.

I do have one suggestion that will help things as far as getting around the site and doing things easier... put some of the non-vb files in the forums directory in their own directories. You have way too much extra stuff in there. ;)

LOL -- My root directory is my forums directory and as far as I can tell they are almost all vb files.

Not all of them. Alot of scrolling had to be done to find anything. Alot of directories, too. I had to stop and ask for directions twice. ;)

Yeah -- a ton of directories for sure. :) I'll do some (more) cleanup when I catch some time for it. It can get cluttered fast! (Boofo helped me with a mod recently -- he's da best!)

Aww, you're just saying that because it's true. ;)