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Does having many databases affect MySQL performance?

Contemplating getting my own server

  • How would the new Mac Mini server compare to a cheap shared hosting account? At present, my website is hosted on GoDaddy.com's 'economy' shared Linux hosting plan. I noticed that Apple has now released a version of the Mac Mini designed to act as a server, costing about $1,000 Canadian. Does anyone have any idea of how it would compare with GoDaddy, in terms of performance? I have found myself frustrated by how slowly content loads from their servers, especially anything that depends on MySQL databases, such as WordPress and MediaWiki. $1,000 would be akin to about 10 years of shared hosting payments, but there might be secondary benefits to running my own server, rather than farming the task out to someone else. Any thoughts?

  • Answer:

    A site hosted on a 800k DSL line is pretty much doomed to feeling sluggish even if only one person is using it, and I'm finding performance of your blog on godaddy to be a mixed bag. Some pages loads are very snappy, others have a long lag. Are you using some sort of wordpress caching plug-in? In theory, you should be able to find shared webhosting that doesn't suck, but that's not my experience. Pair.com was very solid, but they won't run a PHP opcode cache on their shared hosting servers, so ~50% of every wordpress page view ends up being spent reading and parsing all the PHP code. Webfaction gave a lot more latitude for that sort of thing, but I found that their level of performance was pretty uneven. I finally went with a $20/month VPS from http://linode.com. Technically, I'm sharing a server with ~40 other sites, but I've got a guaranteed amount of memory which is plenty to cache almost all my data (so I'm not dependent on disk performance and load on the parent server), I have a guaranteed share of CPU time if usage on multiple VPSs peak, and I get to use up to 50% of the total CPU capacity on the box if I have a peak when there are spare CPU cycles. Uptime has been great, and performance has been both excellent, and consistent.

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Given what you wrote, I think a much better option for you would be http://www.slicehost.com (or one of their competitors). It's a shared machine, but you are given an entire virtualized instance (as if you had your own colocated server) and you are guaranteed a certain amount of CPU/Memory for your instance. You would have complete control over what software is installed and how it's configured. The mac mini purchase doesn't include bandwidth, and you'd also have the inconvenience of having to install all the software on OS X, which is somewhat more difficult due to the fact that it's not nearly as common as Linux and the support community is smaller. Also keep in mind the fact that running a server 24/7 uses electricity less efficiently than a server farm. It might only increase your electric bill by $5/month, but that's already half of what you're paying for hosting now without buying anything.

helios

backwards guitar

I am already using WP Super Cache with GZIP output. That helps for pages that get loaded often, but not for people who go straight to a rarely visited page via Google.

sindark

backwards guitar

One related question: If I want my site to perform better, but don't really need the added bother of administering a virtual server, what would people recommend? I am happy with other people taking care of Linux/Apache/MySQL/etc. I just want to be able to use WordPress and MediaWiki and have everything load quickly for me and my visitors. Is there a hosting company that does a good job of providing that?

sindark

You'd be fine with standard OS X, and to be honest, for a straightforward webserver you don't even need that. Yes. Practically, when I'm working on running web server stuff locally on my mini for development, the first step is always to switch to a command line, and from that point on the experience is identical to Linux.

smackfu

Go to linode or somewhere and get a VPS (or more than one) sized accordingly. It'll be much eaiser and more reliable in the long run.

TravellingDen

We ordered one of those Mac minis this evening, which will supplement an Xserve G5 at a fraction of the cost. They're really great for SME. It's worth saying here, especially for Googlers coming past, that OS X Server can be a real bloody nightmare at times. It's a pain that can pay off if you really need what it does (ie, you are running an all-Mac office), but if you don't know you need it, you don't want it. You'd be fine with standard OS X, and to be honest, for a straightforward webserver you don't even need that. If you don't know what you're doing, there are places like Mac mini colo or the very cheap http://www.mythic-beasts.com/ that will sell you a mac mini and hosting space too, and it can be nice having a Mac that you can pull up a desktop on and do Finder stuff with, especially nice if you're on a Mac at home. But if you're happy with the command line and configuring your software, I'm pretty sure that a reasonably specced Slicehost is going to cover your needs well.

fightorflight

sindark

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