Server Load - What is "Good", What is "Bad", and What is "UGLY"?

Hello all!

I've just had a vB site up for about 6 months now, so forgive me for being a newbie, but I must ask a newbie question:

What should I expect for Server Load Averages on my forums?

As I said, I have a brand new site, with next to NO traffic, and these are the Server Load Averages currently in my AdminCP:

3.50, 5.75, 7.93

Is that good or bad? What does it mean? How do I interpet these numbers? Are lower numbers better, or higher?

I currently host with 1&1, but I will be switching within the week to HostGator, for larger capacity and hopefully faster speeds.

What should I expect to see for my server load averages once I move to HostGator? That will still be a shared hosting plan, but they are supposed to be much quicker from everyone's posts.

Any understanding you could help bring my way, would be appreciated!

Thanks!
Jeff

[Jase2]

Mines usually at 1 and below on a shared hosting account. I wouldn't worry too much though, as the server loads are for the entire server, so if you see the loads go high, then it will probably be down to another client on the same server.

Regards Jason

[Phaedrus]

I use Jaguar PC, mine are always below 2 and usually barely above 1 or just below it.

[tinkerbell]

For those interested my forum is at present closed and i run nothing else on this hostgator shared hosting account, my server load for 2cpu's is reading 6.12 and flashing a red dot.

I would like to thank all for replying to this thread as I thought it was me causing that load, it has been higher, now I know it obviously isn't. I have been advised to go with Surpass and get rid of hostgator, who I came to from 1 and 1 (wouldn't touch them again)

A very happy Tinkerbell

Update - server load is at 74.62 for 2 cpu's with hostgator's shared hosting, time to find someone else i think!!!

[Josh A]

Well, no matter how big they are - just look at there pricing and packages.. Highly over-selling, along with highly over-loading the servers.

[alphadeity]

When you pay for shared hosting the risk of the host overselling the server's resources is probable. I have 3 dedicated servers from three different hosts. They all run great, but at a slightly higher price than average. I would stay away from VPS as most are oversold. Also some control panels take up a good amount of resources. I like direct admin. There are not as many features compared to some other control panels, but direct admin is simple, secure, and fast. I try to keep my servers below 50% load on both memory and cpu. Memory is also very important. All my servers have at least 2GB. The more the better. To top it off, I make sure all clients on the servers are not running scripts that are not allowed or clients that are abusing the server. Although I don't host with either of the hosts mentioned on this thread, 1and1 is a great choice based on past experience.

[snunhuck]

Here's mine right now, and mine some time ago:

Now:Server Load Averages 6.12 4.12 5.23 | 1 Users Online (1 members and 0 guests)
Earlier: 72.37 55.40 29.45 | 3 Users Online (1 members and 2 guests)

[iRO Wiki]

Server Load Averages 1.70 1.47 1.20 | 141 Users Online (105 members and 36 guests)

1 CPU

Usually bounces between .3 - .8, when it gets busy, goes up to 1-3, goes to 5-6 with the nightly backup...

snun: a load avg of 72 means something is wrong, my box only does that when I'm getting a syn attack...

[Paul M]

I *think* the general rule is that the load should be less than the number of processors. Anything upto twice the cpu count is not good, but not bad, anything over that is just not good - the server is being pushed too much.

So if you have 2 cpus then <2 is good, 2 to 4 is ok, 4+ is not good.

So 10+ is bad no matter how you look at it (even if you have 4 cpu's).

[peterpigman]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I *think* the general rule is that the load should be less than the number of processors. Anything upto twice the cpu count is not good, but not bad, anything over that is just not good - the server is being pushed too much.

So if you have 2 cpus then <2 is good, 2 to 4 is ok, 4+ is not good.

So 10+ is bad no matter how you look at it (even if you have 4 cpu's).

Our server was hitting 2+ (twin proc) pretty much constantly and it failed last week. I don't know if it was directly the cause but thankfully our new box has halved it.
100-200 online average
1.16 1.13 0.90
now \0/.

[snunhuck]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I *think* the general rule is that the load should be less than the number of processors. Anything upto twice the cpu count is not good, but not bad, anything over that is just not good - the server is being pushed too much.

So if you have 2 cpus then <2 is good, 2 to 4 is ok, 4+ is not good.

So 10+ is bad no matter how you look at it (even if you have 4 cpu's).

So has anyone seen a server with 35CPUs?