I was wondering how big can one forum get on a single dedicated? Right now my DB is about 1gb and my single cpu quad-core uses about 40-60% cpu average. In 6-12 months when I may need to upgrade I will be forced to choose a second server or to upgrade to a more powerful server. It's going to be a hard choice. I know big places have 3-5 pieces of hardware. Load balance, firewall, sql, and apache are all seperated. A friend has a top 5000k alexa site with 6 million posts and he pays $1500 a month for his setup. I have a feeling I can do the same cheaper but not sure. Any one have a site this big to discuss?
Depends on what you mean by "big". The CF database is over 1.5G (without attachments, they are in the file system). We happily run on a single, dual core server.
A lot of it depends on the operating system and "type" of server and the software. Lets say that your running a windows operating system with 4 quad core processors. I do not know if microsoft ever fixed the problem, but the windows server OS can only use 1/2 of the second processor, and only half of the 3rd and 4th processors. So by the time you get to the 4th processor, windows is only using 1/8 of its capacity. But microsoft might have fixed that problem since nt 4. Back in 1996, Novell on one CPU out preformed windows NT 4 on 4 CPUs. On the other hand - Linux, Unix, Sun, BSD,,, uses 100% of all processors. Is the operating 32 or 64 bit. Are the applications coded to run on 32 or 64 bit processors. Even though you might be running dual, quad core processors, most programs only use one core on one processor. To be able to use the multiple cores, the application has to be written to use them. You say that your using 40-60% of the CPU - is that on all cores? Or, are the applications written to use one core, and that is what your seeing? Are you running a 64 bit operating system and a 64 bit CPU, and is the software written to use a 64 bit processor? There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before you will be able to get an anwser.
