The Importance Of Hardware On A Dedicated Server

Your dedicated server is only as good as the hardware it is running on

. If you are wondering why your server seems to have slowed down, check the hardware. It might be that a recent increase in traffic has tapped out your server. Or it could be that you have an especially CPU-intensive script running on your server, one that is eating up your site's performance.

Regardless the reason, many times a site slowdown is due to hardware that isn't up to the task.

Visitor Volume

The hardware your site runs on determines how many people it can comfortably manage before you start suffering site slowdowns and request time-outs. The more RAM, the more simultaneous connections that can be managed.

RAM is immensely important to a properly performing server. Maintaining a connection is all about keeping all the information associated with it in memory for easy access. You can't do that from a hard drive because it takes too long to retrieve the information. Remember those old Windows Virtual Memory warnings? With enough RAM on your server, you are helping to maintain a stable connection for every visitor. This is especially important for sites that have lots of interactive elements or web apps.

CPU Bottlenecking

You might not think that your site is very CPU intensive, but you might be surprised. SQL queries, which are the standard way of getting information out of a database, can quickly eat up CPU cycles. A blog can quickly become bottlenecked if too many people access the front page all at once.

Things get much worse if you begin performing tasks in the background. If you execute a script every time someone logs into their account, for example, or if you use any complex libraries to do fancy things, your site can quickly run out of cycles.

Imagine, for example, that you want people to be able to crop their user icon on the site. So you use a freely available photo manipulation tool to whip up a simple editor. But now you have a dozen people requesting your site's front page and someone goes to use the tool. It is enough to overtax the server. Requests to the server crawl to a stop until the machine finishes processing, scaring away users.

Another example might be where you use a local script to clean up a user directory. When that script executes, it will impact your site. Unless you want to risk your site stalling during peak hours, you need a server beefy enough to handle your traffic.

Bandwidth and Storage

And, of course, you have storage and bandwidth to consider. If you have a media-heavy site, you will be transferring lots of data. And most sites seem to be moving towards a photo-centric design.

Most sites won't need to worry about hard drive space. Unless you are running a very heavy web app focused around media, you probably won't get near using all your available hard drive space. But learning just what your site needs may tell you that a dedicated server is the best option.

by: Alex Thomson

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