Dedicated servers

[Nutter]

What happens if I order a dedicated server and then outgrow it? Say I need more than the 80g of space, or more that the RAM that comes with the server. Is it possible to have more added?

Also, I am planning on a site that is fairly database intensive. Would it be possible with two dedicated servers to have one acting as the web server and another as the database server? Or, possibly a shared account serving the web stuff with a dedicated server serving MySQL? Either way, I imagine that would be just a matter of selecting the host in the PHP code; just wanting to make sure.

While on this topic; is the 80g in server backed up, and, if so, how? If not, is it possible to get another drive in the server as a RAID backup?

And, one off topic. Say I have two dedicated servers with 5 ip addresses each. On one I'm only running MySQL and no web pages, therefore I only need one ip for that box. Can the other 4 be used on the other server without it costing anything more?

Thanks,
- Ryan

[AlphaWolf]

I can't answer most of the questions but wanted to point out that RAID is NOT a backup! RAID makes sure that, if one drive goes down, the server continues usng the other drive.

The beauty of RAID is that any change I make on one drive, immediately is recorded on the 2nd drive. All well and good...but what happens if I make a mistake, or a site gets wiped out? the RAID drive will NOT have the old version so I can restore it, it would contain the identical flaws caused by the mishap.

This is my biggest concern with my reseller account here on HG - backups are once a week. Not nearly often enough. RAID is NOT a backup.

When and if I move my 2 dedicated servers to lease servers from HG, I will add a 2nd drive in each server, but use each for a backup. Server A backs up to server B and vice versa. Every night I will backup all databases and server config files. Once a week I will do full backups which will contain all the user sites as well. That is what I am doing now and it works like a champ.

Also, just some input - if you are running MYSql processor intensive applications, do not do a single processor system unless you are aware that you will probably oversell the server once you sell 30-35 GB. With a dual processor system you can safely sell (usually) 50-60GB if the applications are processor intensive and most of your customers access the system during the same 'prime time' hours.

Just my two cents

Peace

Wolf

Peace

Wolf

[Nutter]

I appreciate the answer Wolf. I never assumed that a RAID array was good for anything but a hard drive crash. I intend to backup on my end often. Right now I run a dump of the databases every 6 hours, but that may go more often when the application goes live.

Question for you: the gb numbers you are quoting for processor loads, are these total database size? And, would it matter if it was one 50gb database verses 500 100meg databases?

And, if it matters, I'm not planning on reselling the space. It's for an application; and I don't want it's reliability to be dependent on 1,000 other sites on the same server.

- Ryan

[AlphaWolf]

Hey Nutter,

It isn't necessarily the size of the DB, (though a large DB requires more processing resources doing queries), but the amount of processing resources required by the application that accesses it, and the number of simultaneous users accessing it. Some applications are total hogs.

I used those percentages based on my experience with selling space on my servers. Static websites I can sell at close to 80% of an 80 GB drive on a single processor system. Database driven apps...when I have gone over 40% of disk space sold I see major slow downs and even some MySQL crashes on a single processor system.

Just a FYI - everyone's mileage varies & it is hard to predict. I had one site that had about 200 users at a time accessing a CMS which did multiple MySQL queries and they ate up only 100 MB of space, but a HUGE amount of processor resources on a single processor system.

Peace

Wolf

[Nutter]

Bump - will someone from HG answer this please?

What happens if I order a dedicated server and then outgrow it? Say I need more than the 80g of space, or more that the RAM that comes with the server. Is it possible to have more added?

you can upgrade ram and get a 2nd drive put in.

Also, I am planning on a site that is fairly database intensive. Would it be possible with two dedicated servers to have one acting as the web server and another as the database server? Or, possibly a shared account serving the web stuff with a dedicated server serving MySQL? Either way, I imagine that would be just a matter of selecting the host in the PHP code; just wanting to make sure.

You would be better off going with one very powerfull server rather than 2 less powerfull which would result in many problems dividing it up.

While on this topic; is the 80g in server backed up, and, if so, how? If not, is it possible to get another drive in the server as a RAID backup?

no it is not backed up but you could get another drive put in for backup purposes.

And, one off topic. Say I have two dedicated servers with 5 ip addresses each. On one I'm only running MySQL and no web pages, therefore I only need one ip for that box. Can the other 4 be used on the other server without it costing anything more?

ips can't be moved box to box they are assigned to a single server.