Already worried about dreamhost...

Hi again

Just joined the other day, not uploaded anything yet, but reading into the limits about cpu usage -- im already thinking of getting my money back guarantee.

Im sure dreamhosts CPU usage is fair, and my site prob wont even need what they give - but i've been reading some horror storys on the net about dreamhost killing sites with phpbb and only 20 users.

Can anyone reasure me about the cpu usage?
(why does dreamhost turn on PHP as CGI by default - i know it can be turned off, but it turns it back on when you install phpbb)

How much cpu usage is a simple sql query, like:

$sql = "SELECT *
FROM Table;
if ( ($result = $db->sql_query($sql)) )
{
}
$row = $db->sql_fetchrowset($result);

Any info would be great.

Regards

If you hear a story about a 20 user board being shut down, there is probably something seriously wrong with what they're using... or you're not hearing the full story. ;)

As far as worrying about limits goes, the only way around sharing resources is a dedicated server. No shared hosting company, regardless of which marketing approach they use, will let you drag down a server that's shared with a 100+ other customers.

It's generally better to upset one customer by shutting him down than it is to upset every other customer except him by not shutting him down. I think it's considered a good thing by the thousands of us that don't do anything to affect other users, and only seems to bother the small handful of people that try to hog up a whole server at shared prices, instead of springing for the dedicated server that they know they should be on. :)

As phpBB and PHP as CGI, it might be helpful to know that it is only "turned back on" if you install phpBB via the "oneclick install" from the web panel.

If you are up to handling the limitations of the mod_php running on dreamhost (many references in the forums and on the wiki - just search), you can always install phpBB via the shell and run under mod_php.

--rlparker


Edited by rlparker on 03/15/06 09:28 AM (server time).

I can't speak for PHPBB, but I write all my own PHP code that uses a lot MySQL queries. My websites have about 6 million rows of data and thousands of pages of cached results. I run cron jobs to spider pages and update my cache. I currently use about 15 CPU minutes daily, most of it is running the cron jobs. A small PHPBB installation should use many times less than that.

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My websites have about 6 million rows of data and thousands of pages of cached results.

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Wow, that is some database.

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A small PHPBB installation should use many times less than that.

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Agreed. Many who report CPU problems are running plugins from unknown sources that may not be the most efficient. I think the best course of action for those having problems is first to disable any plugins. Then add them back one by one until the problem one is found.

I know how you feel. I may be getting my money back too. Dissapointed because I was really excited about this host and already moved a bunch of domains over. Drat!

Ditto :P

I was really excited in the beginning.

it turns out to be scary, but i want to try the service, as the promo codes are available. :D this host offer in great quantities, that's why many use them... and what's good about it is that they've been online for lots of years... sounds reliable.. just scary about these issues about the CPU.. no CPU details, but you'll need limit your CPU usage.. sounds hard..

>no CPU details, but you'll need limit your CPU usage..

That's not quite true. You can turn on resource reporting for each user. Now you can track how much cpu time you're using up. If it starts getting high, you'll most likely have some warning before you reach limits.



-Matttail