Hi , i have been a customer since rackshack (gee never heard that before) I have had a buttpile of servers and I still generally get by on my server admin skills but my real question is how many sites can we expect to host on any basic server (P4, 1gigram, cpanel, 80ghd, 100mpbs) (the cheap end).

I would love to hear people post saying 500 or more sites or explain how you pros do it. Like do you fill a server with 80 accounts and watch top get busy and dont add more and get a new server or do you just add tons more power to your current servers.

I have a few(more then 50) accounts on this box and anytime a mysql forum gets slammed with visitors , I can see other sites sufffering from usage overload. most of the time my load is at 0.06 or around there but at slammed times the server is at 5.0 -16.0 But I dont make enough money to really upgrade anything super big. Suggestion? tips on how you guys are filling your servers, im fine on getting the clients, i just need to know how to make the best decision on when to decide to get another server, add more super hardware or how many sites can we really host on one box? tell me your tales!

Well, my rule of thumb is when a harddrive is 65% full, that box is full.

I mean, you could host 1,000 accounts on one box if the box had decent power and the accounts were low trafficked.

It really all comes down to server load and whether or not you can keep your httpd.conf (and other) files maintained with that many lines.

It all really depends.

How much traffic do the sites get? What are they running? what else is the server doing(creating backups, etc)? Do you allow your customers to use mailing lists, etc...

I would suggest adding the sites a few at a time. Then watch your load average for the next few days(use sar so you dont have to sit there and watch). Once your load is consistantly around 1.00-1.50 (just my personal opinion) without running backups, stats, or any other extras, then its time to look into either optimizing, or getting another server.

My hardrive is currently :71Gdrive using20G 48Gfree = 30% used

3 or less sites use heavy mail-listing twice a month (or less in a few months).

1 overly busy phpbb forum (2-6k hits an hour)

of all my clients maybe 5 even know there is a cpanel or stats or anything other then there much worshipped /webmail

I have noticed either the server is dead at loads of less then .06 or its at 10.00-20.00 for a few minutes doing log files or during the cilents mail listing or if over 5 clients are using ftp etc.. and then goes back to .06 - .75..... most of the time.

Fridays and saturdays seem to be a higher load of maybe 1.5 for a few hours but usually again , if nothing is going on its mostly.


typical scenario for me :

everything is smooth, loads are .06 every time i look in ssh, i keep adding clients, sites runnning fine, i start to relax a few days and then i get 5 calls saying the server is slow, ftp is laggy and webmail or cpanel takes a year to open.

1 day it was webalizer never ended from a day before so it was out of control . killed that ,issue fixed.

another day more calls, clients ftp slow, i went in and the one busy forum site was bogging the entire server to 20.00 loads with its mysql traffic. I shut that site off and in 3 minutes loads were back to nothing.

Some other days its perfect but seems like the server may be at its limit for (when its actually being used). guess i have to base it on when its all in use, not when im lucky and everyone is out at the beach.

I guess maybe getting the busy forum site off is my 1st point of call, then i will add maybe 10 more sites and start looking for more box.

thanks for your feeback...

I ended up getting a new server anyways and moved the slammed phpbb3 forums from old to new server.

Odd things I noticed for a new server with a load of 0.00 all the time on it, why would ram usage stay and never move from 35%.