Speed of MySQL servers

I'm very interested in DreamHost's most affordable plan. However, I have searched various forums and found some posts complaining about MySQL performance.

I suppose the database servers aren't normally sluggish. Is that correct? If there are occasional problems, how frequent you've found them to be and how long do they last?

I'd like to use a content management system like PostNuke and phpBB forums, so I'd really appreciate it if some existing customers could share their experiences.

Ugh! I've spoken :) Thanks for your attention.

My database has never been sluggish. It's only gone down once, but that was for a hardware repair.

My server is normally ok during the day, but every evening it slows to a crawl. I don't know what's going on as I never had this problem with my old host. I can only imagine either it's a server issue or some user on the shared server is using ridiculous amounts of the processing power each evening.

bryan | website

My db-driven sites take forever to load as well, particularly during the day/evening. (Haven't noticed problems in the wee hours, possibly because I'm simply not awake then anymore!)

I'd venture that this has been going on for perhaps a month or so now -- but it didn't seem to happen much before.

All-in-all though, I do still very much recommend DH -- I've never been happier with a host in the almost-a-decade that I've had a website. :-) I think they just have a lot of new customers (and traffic) right now.

Dear macmanx, schweb and everinjoy (love your nick!),

Thank you for sharing! I found your information very valuable. I would really, truly want to sign up with DreamHost because of all the great features (three hoorays for shell access!) and their reputation as a reliable host.

This db issue has me very worried, however. My site is educational and pertains to some important political and religious matters. I'd really people to enjoy spending time at the site and read as much as possible. These days, people may get anxious if a site takes a long time to load.

Maybe I should look for something more expensive...

Well, before you decide against DH, I'd fire off an email to support, say that reading in the forums you got the idea that it might be a problem, and see what they have to say about it. Some of us are on the same machine, so it's altogether possible that it's just some local problem, and not at all a DH-wide one. :-)