Can I host an active IP. Board Community wihtout any problems?

[xe-cute]

I run an active music production community (www.serious-sounds.net) that started small in 2003 (over 7yrs ago).

We are currently with Bluehost and our daily CPU Throttling looks like this:

http://www.serious-sounds.net/music-...1289125565.jpg

Hence to say I am fed up with it.

Yesterday I closed down the forums to do some tests and found that even when the board was offline the simple fact that someone would refresh a page a dozen times would make the CPU Throttled (under tests). So it has nothing to do with any 3rd party or core applications (they where all disabled anyway).

I am wondering if hostgator could fulfill our hosting needs?

We have between 150 to 200 active members a day (out of 36k+). 50 of those are usually new signups and only about 30 a day actually post content on the forums.

We seem to have thousands of lurkers a day. But I try and reduce this impact on resources by hiding thread content to none members.

The majority of our site is articles and tutorials on music production. Along with attached images that help with tutorials. We do have some large attachments such as our exclusive sample pack which means badnwidth used to be huge (about 75GB a month - until we made it members only over 25 posts - now our monthly bandwidth is bestwen 1GB to 5GB a month for HTTP usage - ftp usage depends soley on backups bu can jump high when doing so as our site is over 8GB in size),

Is there anyone else here with an active forum community such as our hosted on hostgator and would you recommend there hosting?

We would go VPS but we do not make any money & simply can't afford it at this stage. Although we are looking to this in the future if we can get some cashflow somehow.

I am signed up to Bluehost for the next 2yrs but will be trying to get my money back after switching to invest in my new host.

I just want a host that will not slow our site down with CPU throttling or any other means.

A lot of hosts say they are unlimited in everything. But then when you ask and show them the figures they deny you.

I have asked in live chat and they told me to send an email to support for a diffinative answer. But I'd rather here it from the customers to be honest.

If you run a forum like ours which is busy on Hostgator than please let me know how the service is and can you please give me a link too so I can check you out to compare if you are as busy as us (I mean we are not really that busy tbh, just some hosts think we are).

Thanks for your time in reading this and any help you cangive.

Best regards,

-xe-

[xe-cute]

P.S. sorry for all them spelling mistakes. I've not been to bed yet and it is almost 1pm here. Searching for a new host really is a stressful thing that makes you lose sleep.

[xe-cute]

I forgot to ask too. Does HostGator support FXP transfer from one server to another for me to transfer all my stuff or would I have to do the tedious download and upload routine via my own PC?

[GvilleRick]

FXP transfers are not supported. HG will transfer your files for you at no cost.

As for your original questions, it is impossible for us to state for sure whether you would have any problems hosting here. HG does not throttle accounts. The closest thing to that would be the limit on MySQL processes which is set at 25 concurrent processes. This generally is not a problem since a process should only take less than a second if the script is coded correctly. To see the restrictions on accounts here you should look over the Terms of Service which is linked at the bottom of this page.

I would suspect that there is a good chance you would still have problems with a shared account with any host. Unfortunately some accounts outgrow shared hosting and have to make decisions on either paying more or reducing what they offer. The throttling the other host has in place is designed to prevent any one account from slowing down all the accounts on the server. It may be overly aggressive and you may well do better here for a while. Or it may be that your account here will cause problems on the server and be suspended.

[xe-cute]

The closest thing to that would be the limit on MySQL processes which is set at 25 concurrent processes.

What does this mean exactly? For example my main forum page has 10 Queries it runs when a member loads it up. Are these MySQL Queries classed as concurrent MYSQL processes?

[xe-cute]

Originally Posted by xe-cute

What does this mean exactly? For example my main forum page has 10 Queries it runs when a member loads it up. Are these MySQL Queries classed as concurrent MYSQL processes?

Really trying to get this sorted asap.

Answers to questions like this is kinda vital for me to know before hand.

I don't want to waste both our time by signing up and then leaving.

In short: is a MySQL query classed as a MySQL process or not? (sorry for my noobness)

[striddy]

Originally Posted by xe-cute

Really trying to get this sorted asap.

Answers to questions like this is kinda vital for me to know before hand.

I don't want to waste both our time by signing up and then leaving.

In short: is a MySQL query classed as a MySQL process or not? (sorry for my noobness)

You will get a reply if you email sales at hg.

[xe-cute]

Live chat sales has no idea as I already asked them before I even made this thread.

I suppose I'll have to try email sales instead then (hope it is not the same person who didn't know before). Will be a good test of how quick I get a response via there email system I suppose.

[virtvir5]

In a way, HG Sales are just being honest. It is extremely difficult for anyone to offer any firm prediction (let alone an absolute guarantee) about a web site that appears to be approaching the borderline limits on its current shared server.

Hostgator's shared servers are among the best provisioned hardware in the business so that, if any shared servers can handle your current loading, they can. But if so, the real question is 'for how long?'

At some point, no matter what you decide on as a temporary expedient, a very busy growing site is going to start using more server resources than any shared server can possibly tolerate without unacceptable impacts on its other users. When that ultimately happens, some kind of limitation becomes inevitable and the only solution for the longer run is to upgrade.

[xe-cute]

I just got this email back from Sales:

Please be aware that the limit only exists on shared servers, and you can set the MySQL connection limit as high as you want on a VPS or Dedicated server. You may want to consider these options rather than a Shared if you believe your sites performance will be adversely effected by the limits. If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to contact us immediately!
Thanks,

I asked if MySQL queries where classed as MySQL connections. This does not seem to of been answered here. This is like pulling teeth. I'm guessing the avoidance of the question is because they are. At least that is what I am now going to presume as I can't keep asking in live chat, the forums & via email the same question repeatedly.

I guess I am just going to have to keep looking. I honestly don't think my forums are too busy. Bluehost is notorious for there CPU limiting even on very small sites such as simple personal blogs with low traffic.

The limit of 25 MySQL queries here though means no one could possible manage to run a community forum with Hostgator surely? Stock IP. Board script is 8 to 12 per page view per member (depending on what page you are looking at: forum index, topic view, thread view or search etc). I am sure these queries are very low in there CPU usage or no one would be able to have a forum on any shared hosting.

Anyway I shall endeavor more on my quest. I bid you farewell.

[Jedikiller]

I am pretty sure that queries are not classed as processes. Processes are, as far as I know, defined as one set of queries from when the connection to the database is opened until the connection to the DB is closed- so in a single process you can have very many queries. This means that you cannot have 25 users online doing actions at the exact same time. This is not a common occurrence unless you have astronomical amounts of users online at a time- at that point you should have the means to upgrade to something that can handle you.

Given the amount of scripts that use large numbers of queries per page load, if it was counted per query you would pretty much only be able to serve static HTML files or really barebones scripts. I think even a stock Wordpress installation uses more than 25 queries per load.

I run a small forum on one of the shared servers- it is somewhat less active than your site but I have never had any problems with it. Granted, I'm not using IP.Board, but the query amounts seem similar and I've never had a problem with multiple users browsing at once. The only thing I've ever had trouble with was an AJAX-powered chatbox on the main page, which was not well coded. It generated a process every 2 seconds or so, which meant that if I had a bunch of users lurking online and they all happened to query the server at once, I would exceed the limit.

Other than that, however, I have seen no problems. As long as you're not using a huge load of scripts like a chatbox, then you'll be fine.

[CptGemini]

When i signed up around a month ago they had told me to try and keep total cpu usage under 25% if I remember correctly. I run a website for an old gaming clan I used to have, it doesnt exist anymore but I do various other things with my domain. I have attached a couple of images to show you what I mean with the cpu usage. If you need to see anything else let me know and I will gladly get some more images from the cpanel for you. I too was with bluehost but they sent me an email because I was hotlinking files to another forum which I do regularly, I got fed up with them on that so I came here and I am loving it so far. I made it clear to HG when asking that I do hotlink a number of things without them being linked on my site anywhere and they said it was ok with them.