(venting...)
Well, after countless hours spent moving to a new server, transferring databases, picking line by line through hundreds and hundreds of files of code, tweaking, and attempting to fix countless bugs, the new server appears to be failing under the load.
Our problem is not new, very few server hosts even want to attempt to host a site with over 100 concurrent forum connections, not to mention over 8.5 million hits a month.
In our search for better servers, we erroneously thought that we had found one that would be able to support this site. We figured wrong. Today, at 65 forum user connections and 12 gigs of transfer already, the server gave up and went south for the winter. Spending hours with tech support, we have come to the painful conclusion that our only alternative at this time is a dedicated server/raq.
We absolutely grit our teeth when the word dedicated server is used. This is a VERY expensive option for a free web site to handle.
The purpose of this post is to just inform our users as to what our issues are at this time. Our time is limited at the moment, as we do not have much time to get this site off of this shaky server, and we can't go back to the one we had before. Unfortunately, our previous server host was actaully glad to see us go. The shear load that this site was causing was actually slowing down the rest of their 3000 sites that they host. We used more gigabytes of transfer per month that all 3000 sites combined.
As we look for options on budgeting a dedicated server, we will post more info to let users know the status of this situation and the hard decisions that may come with it.
I appreciate everyone's patience will this ongoing problem.
Thanks everyone.
Well, after countless hours spent moving to a new server, transferring databases, picking line by line through hundreds and hundreds of files of code, tweaking, and attempting to fix countless bugs, the new server appears to be failing under the load.
Our problem is not new, very few server hosts even want to attempt to host a site with over 100 concurrent forum connections, not to mention over 8.5 million hits a month.
In our search for better servers, we erroneously thought that we had found one that would be able to support this site. We figured wrong. Today, at 65 forum user connections and 12 gigs of transfer already, the server gave up and went south for the winter. Spending hours with tech support, we have come to the painful conclusion that our only alternative at this time is a dedicated server/raq.
We absolutely grit our teeth when the word dedicated server is used. This is a VERY expensive option for a free web site to handle.
The purpose of this post is to just inform our users as to what our issues are at this time. Our time is limited at the moment, as we do not have much time to get this site off of this shaky server, and we can't go back to the one we had before. Unfortunately, our previous server host was actaully glad to see us go. The shear load that this site was causing was actually slowing down the rest of their 3000 sites that they host. We used more gigabytes of transfer per month that all 3000 sites combined.
As we look for options on budgeting a dedicated server, we will post more info to let users know the status of this situation and the hard decisions that may come with it.
I appreciate everyone's patience will this ongoing problem.
Thanks everyone.
