Slow performance and oversold capacity
Posted by Bill Gaffney | February 11th, 2008It’s been nearly a year since migrating the domains I host to Dreamhost, and unfortunately I believe that DH has simply been unable to keep up with their rate of growth in 2007.
Source: WikipediaThe server that I share with others at Dreamhost orginally had a consistent load average under 5, and although I believe that to be too high considering the specs of the box, now averages above 12 with sharply erratic spikes over 100. Customer support has been responsive and diligent in rooting out others processes that have spun out of control, but the total users per box is simply too high. Performance of my sites is unacceptable.
Obviously the sites I manage aren’t deserving of the cost or resources associated with a dedicated server, so at the recommendation of a friend, I’ve started the transition to Slicehost who enters the market with VPS slices using Xen virtualization software to reserve memory and CPU slots. I’ve opted for the 256slice which boasts:
- 256MB
- 10GB
- 100GB
- $20 sign up
With Slicehost there are no contracts or setup fees. You are free to upgrade, downgrade, add a slice or remove a slice at your convenience. So, for 200, we’ll roll the dice again to determine whether we’ve found another temporary residence or a permanent home.
