Call me a dumbass. Someone please explain hosting for me. Thanks.

ram = memory
bandwidth usage = amount of used traffic, f.ex 330gb (which is about one mbit constant for a month)

ram = memory
bandwidth = data transfer

your hardrive stores your ram and the bandwidth is like the ozone layer

Here's some useful questions...

With dedicated servers, how do you know when you need hardware upgrades? How to differentiate server speed vs speed of your network's bandwidth?

How do you know the difference between needing more RAM, or maybe a faster processor?

What percent of memory do you want free during peak or average usage times?

Slow sites = memory upgrade...it's almost certain not to be the network unless you're using some two bit host.

As for processor, I don't know ... but my general rule of thumb is to double RAM one and then if your sites slow, upgrade to a better server. I don't even know if that's the right thing to do but it works great for me.

For the third question, I don't know ... but your sites should be fast.

Use webwait.com. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load then it's too slow and you may be losing surfers. If you're running a blog and it's slow, kill plugins and it will drastically improve. I got a blog down from 7 to 2 by doing that. 3 seconds is the worst you want, try to keep it under 2 seconds. It it totally possible to get it under 1 second but you're typically not going to lose surfers if it's under 3.

ok. got that. how do you choose the right amount of each? Im assuming its all based on traffic and what they do while on your site.

Well, the bandwidth is going to be determined by what kind of site you have, how many people are visiting and how long they are staying.

As far as how much RAM to get, more is better. You can not have enough, but it is difficult to have too much. If you have a 32 bit OS then you can start with 1, but if you have 64 bit, you had better have two.

dumbass.

well you asked for it.

Bandwidth is NOT the same as transfer.

Bandwidth is the size of the link that your data goes through.

Transfer is how much data you've actually transferred through that link.

Good logical info, thanks!

bandwidth != data transfer

bandwidth = "flow rate" of data transfer

data transfer = amount of data transferred

I felt for purposes of his question it would be easier for him to relate.

There are ways to tell exactly what your problems are and what needs to be done to fix them.
These things are fairly easy for a system administrator, but based on your posts I think you'd
need a sysadmin to check for you. The main tools are ssh, iostat, iotop, and top.

Most of the time, you don't actually NEED hardware upgrades, except if you run out of disk space.
Most of the time, you can instead choose to have a qualified person make a few configuration
changes so you're not wasting the capacity you already have. On a typical web server we can
reduce load by about 70% by simply using a few correct settings.
With most web hosts, the person you talk does is not what I mean by a qualified admin.
large hosts employ one or two people who really know what they are doing, plus a bunch of
people who have risen to the level of their incompetence. Small hosts normally do not have
a truly qualified sysadmin on staff, and instead call us or someone else as needed, if they
are forced to do so.

With modern processor speeds, most sites will be fine with any recent processor.
If you are overloading your CPU, it's almost always because of some really dumb MySQL/PHP,
where a PHP script is abusing the hell out of MySQL. Best to fix the script. More RAM is always
better. Linux will find ways to make use of any RAM you give it. You want a minimum of a GB.
4GB will handle most sites. If you need more than 4GB, your site is large enough for you to call
us and have us take a look at your actual system.

dumbass! :P

granted he didn't know the difference between ram and bandwidth your explanation may have been better

Remote or dedicated SQL server is also a good idea if websites and scripts depend heavily on it. Also for security reasons. + external CDN reduce loads, especially if you have bigger files.

RAM

Only IF the traffic and load justifies it, after optimizing settings and identifying any really poorly
written queries which run often, and only if you don't mind "wasting" money paying for unused
hardware. Why? Because two servers doubles the chance of failure. Say a single server has
a 15% of hardware failure taking down the site this year. Add another required server and
that roughly doubles the chance of a hardware failure taking down your site because now you
are down if EITHER fails. Instead of a 15% (once every six years), it's now a 30% chance, or
once every 3 years.

Security wise, multiple servers can either double the chance of being hacked, or can greatly
reduce the damage caused by a hack. That depends entirely on the expertise of the person
setting them up. 95% of the time, doubling the amount of hardware simply doubles your
exposure.

Over the next couple of years we plan to put together a framework to fully leverage the power
of a properly designed redundant cluster, where each server is more secure because
it's locked down to only doing it's assigned tasks, and each is optimized for the tasks it
performs. It IS possible, but more often than not it's done backwards - reducing overall
performance and increasing exposure to risk.

One perfect example of how it's often done wrong is that often people set up one server doing MySQL only and the other server doing everything else, primarily serving pics and videos on
the web site, and they expect better performance. In fact, that's a performance killer and a
waste of money. The SQL server uses the CPU, with minimal disk access - virtually no disk
access if it has enough RAM. On the other hand, the web server, spitting out video files,
loads the disk and uses almost no CPU. Splitting the two onto separate servers doesn't
reduce overall load at all - it just means you now have one server that's CPU bound with
an idle hard drive and another server that's drive bound with an idle CPU - waste. Putting
them on the same server allows MySQL to use the CPU and Apache to use the disk, perfectly
complimenting each other. Plus, on the same server Apache can more efficiently communicate
with MySQL. On separate servers, all SQL queries have to be marshalled across the network,
creating wasteful load on both machines. Performance wise, splitting them to separate servers
has a significant cost which is justified only if you HAVE to, or if you're going to carefully optimize
the hardware for each. (Example - one small, super fast SSD for the MySQL, and an array of
large slow drives to store all of the web content.)

was certainly not a stupid question!

Bandwidth would be the MBs people are uploading from the site.

Let's say you have a picture on your site that is 1MB.

Let's say five people go to your site and they each view the picture once.

This means your bandwidth is 5MB.