Server Traffic Load Question
 

How many unique hits should you allow a server to run up on a daily basis, before you decide to get another one for load balancing?

I got a site doing around 50,000 a day doing 20Mbps. What would a good server configuration be for this?

20mbps is not too much
a good p3 (1-1.4), maybe dual depending on # of jobs
+ 1G RAM should easily handle this

I would look to the next stepping stone
40mbps
recommend Xeon p4
+ 1G RAM

50
= 2G RAM

60
Upgrade to dual Xeon

Ok, but how many file requests or raw hits should I allow? I currently have 2 servers doing about 1 million to 1.5 million file requests each day.

Check your server load,you should see when it gets into critical areas.It's the only way to find out if you should upgrade because it depends on various factors.If your site needs MySQL loads will be higher of course.

I always recomment 1GB RAM and a CPU ~2Ghz,that should be enough for most people but if you notice slowdowns or a very high server load get a better one.

Really without the specs of your current server how are we to give an honest reply?

Find out what your server load is.. go into shell and type this:

uptime

copy and paste it here and then go and type in:

top

and copy and paste that too and I can give you some helpful advice.

Unless you have a low end celeron, you'll probably be alright for a while.. if anything you might need more ram or your various config files tweaked.

IT all depends on what your server is being used for, if it's all html and pics and now scripts 75k uniques is the max before I'd start a new server, I have some php/SQL heay scripts on sites that need a new server at about 25k uniques.

If your load stays below 3.0 you should be fine, if it's above 3 and it's slowing things down, toss another server at it :thumbsup

Right now my two servers are 2.5 Ghz, 1GB RAM with no scripting. All html, jpeg, and mpegs. Running off the latest free bsd with apache.

50K visitors makes 20Mbps??? How that can be? Is it a movie site? Or may be a big free site? Usually 500K pageviews of ordinary TGP galleries do not do even 5Mbps.

Basically, if your traffic is mostly big files like movies - you need to worry only about wide channel. If you have some heavy scripts and MySQL load, you should worry about CPU power, and if you are getting a lot of hits - this is memory you should worry about.

If you ask u'r server guy he can set-up MRTG / Cricket to monitor just about every aspect of your server, from CPU usage, NIC usage, RAM usage ... that way you can very accurately measure your traffic's load on your machine and capacity plan.

holy smokes
a helpful thread on GFY

this deserves a bump :)