Expert advice needed
 

My website and forum has the following specs:

Total threads: 11,852
Total Posts: 141,545
Members: 3,870
Most users online at once: 213
Average users online concurrently: About 30-50 or so
Monthly bandwidth: 60gb
Mysql db size: 142mb
Disk space usage: 663mb

My current host offers the following w/my VPS:

2 GB Burst RAM
512 MB Guaranteed RAM
20 GB Storage
500 GB Monthly Transfer

CentOS 4 Operating System

Dual Xeon 3 GHz or Better
8 GB Registered ECC RAM
U320 SCSI HD in Hardware RAID 10
Zero Downtime During Drive Failure
Hot-Swap Drives and Fans
Replaceable on the Fly
Dual Gigabit Network Interfaces

I have 4 hacks installed, and they are as follows:

No Spam!

Thank You hack

VB Trends - enhanced forum home statistic

Mood manager

For some reason, my server load is spiking erratically. I even shut down my forum today, and it was still spiking. I am currently with Servint hosting. I had no problems for a long time, and they're really nice, but no one seems to know what is causing my load to increase. I requested server optimization info at vb.com, and did what they said (just so you know).

So do you guys think I've got "too much" server wise, or not enough to handle the website and forum stats that I posted above?

I don't understand what can cause these spikes. I've banned Yahoo slurp bots from my forum completely, so that's not the problem. I'm just at a loss.

Anyone???

On a VPS perhaps its another user on the machine causing the CPU to spike, A VPs is a shared system so if another account on the box is eating the CPU and it says (burst ram) im assuming its not dedicated, perhaps other users on the machine are eating your resources, they may have oversold that machine to much.

I used to think that a VPS would get it done for me too. I even upgraded to a more powerful VPS solution. The bottom line with a VPS is that you have many accounts on the same server competing for the RAM and the CPU's. My forum is approximately the same size as yours and I simply had to go to a dedicated server about a year ago and I'm very glad that I did. Of course, I run a number of additional sites but the real resource hog is my vBulletin site. I know it seems like a lot of money to spend but your user experience will increase dramatically. Even a low end dedicated server runs circles around a VPS account. All those specs about "guaranteed" RAM and the like are bunk. What really eats you up is CPU.

For best bang for the buck, I have a dedicated server with JaguarPC and I have not been disappointed.

well i have been looking into their forums abit and it seems they have tons of happy customers :D i just wish i can pay for it :(

you can get a really good deal with a dedicated server provider if you know how to bargain with them.

Can you budget out around $1,000 USD a month for hosting?

What?! $1K per month is way more than she would need to spend. More like $100/month.

hold on! i'm no expert on dedi's but i know i shouldn't spend that much...:erm:

seriously, you think all the guys on vb.org can afford professional hosting ?!... 99% don't...

and for a 50 avg members online, a semi-dedicated at 50$/m is way enough for that usage...

as said earlier, a VSP is a shared computer... the load of it is not always directed to you. did you ask the host to see if they can track the usage and see if it is related to you?

Sounds like the problem isn't your forum then. :p

I agree with nex. 50$/month should cover that with ease.

The problem is you have to get a good host for your vps, it's just like shared hosting.

Actually if you had a good host you could run that site on a shared server.

I would recommend a VPS in the 50 dollar range. If you need some advice on a few good ones send me a pm as I don't want to spam the forum.

I run two sites that size on a vps and the cpu usage is about .10-.25 at most times. It's all on the config a good host.