reliability and mysql usage

Hello,

I'm a Lunarpages Refugee and I'm considering joining Dreamhost. I hear a lot of positive reviews about DreamHost and the features are great.

(and wow, you let people mention competitors, which isn't allowed at the LP forums).

The only things I hear that is less than positive about DH is the reliability.

This was what someone said:
If it's for a critical application, or one that uses a lot of MySQL, I wouldn't recommend them, but for basic webhosting needs, they're pretty fast and reliable.

My site currently uses Coppermine Photo Gallery, Wordpress Blog, and SMF forums. The forum isn't used so much anymore except to handle the login for the gallery.

Would my site be okay at DreamHost? I know I have 97 days to decide but it's still a hassle to move, especially considering I have a lot of photos and a huge database (that I intend to break up to make it easier to move).

Is there a limit for mysql db size? Currently, my total usage is almost 200MB across several databases. The largest table is 75MB (spam-fighting log for WP).

If you're interested in seeing my site:
gallery: http://takethu.com/
blog: http://takethu.com/blog/

Thanks!

There are many gallery and blog working fine on DH.

Yours should works fine too.

In reply to:

This was what someone said:
If it's for a critical application, or one that uses a lot of MySQL, I wouldn't recommend them, but for basic webhosting needs, they're pretty fast and reliable.

If I were running a business, and an outage would actually cost real $$$, I would think carefully about how much value I can get for less than $10/month. I would think very carefully about putting a "critical application" in a shared hosting environment.

That said, all shared environments have problems. At least DH posts when there is a significant problem. Many other hosts won't even acknowledge when there is a problem.

As long as you stay within the TOS, you will probably be happy here. I am.

Regards,
Rudy

1. What kind of plan were you on at Lunarpages? A shared hosting plan, I assume, right? Did you have the basic plan or the business plan?
2. How much do you know about the architecture and infrastructure at Lunarpages? DreamHost shared hosting runs NFS mounted filesystems with a separate MySQL server.

It seems to me that most people will see the same basic reliability concerns on any shared host where 80% of the problems are caused by bad neighbors.

You'll notice that your problems occur regardless of what kind of site you have and whether it's using MySQL or not. Sites either "play nice" under shared hosting or are destined for either doom or dedicated hosting.

I'm on basic plan shared hosting at Lunarpages.

I can't say I know the back end details of LP's infrastructure.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I've signed up with DreamHost and am eager to finish the move over.

In reply to:
I'm on basic plan shared hosting at Lunarpages.

That's good, then. Your access to web server compute resources was roughly equivalent so if your sites ran fine there, they are very very likely to work fine here at DreamHost.

Welcome aboard, neighbor!

In reply to:
This was what someone said:
If it's for a critical application, or one that uses a lot of MySQL, I wouldn't recommend them, but for basic webhosting needs, they're pretty fast and reliable.

Do not forget that shared server is shared. With such low cost, it is impossible to run a *critical* application or game server. A shared server is fine for most of the users. So does DH!

In reply to:
Is there a limit for mysql db size?

The MySQL database counts in your total server space. If you just joined DH, you should have 500GB space for websites and MySQL databases. You should be fine as long as you do not exceed the quota.

I'll be honest, I used to recommend dreamhost, but after almost 2 full years I can't.

they simply don't run mysql properly. A site I have running on two hosts takes 45+ seconds to load on dreamhost today. The fastest it loaded in the past 3 months was 6 seconds, one day, after a support person heavily tweaked it. (It was loading in 15+! before then)

After 3 months dreamhost keeps moving me from server to server. Nothing ever changes. Site still loads incredibly slow.

My non-dynamic sites load in 2 seconds. I know it isn't the webserver. I keep sending them all the speed results.

MEanwhile, my mysql is using an incredibly small amount of resources: according to 3 seperate techs so far. I checked--they aren't lying.

Would a move to DreamhostPS help? I wish I knew. No one will answer that though I've asked 5 times.

I have a 6 dollar a month account running the same programming, loading in 2 seconds. Another site is running on an overloaded university server which is hammered by students & visitors--it loads in under 1 second.

How can I recommend dreamhost? I love the environmental conscience, and the employee owned business. I just wish they backed that up with SOME tiny amount of reliability.

In reply to:
one day, after a support person heavily tweaked it. (It was loading in 15+! before then)

What did they do?

I'd guess that the tweaking involved changing the way the way some of the tables were joined or setting up some indexes.

The majority of performance problems you'll see with database are data dependent - simplistically, a lot depends on how many rows there are in your tables. This is the difference between the performance of a forum with no posts compared to a forum with lots of posts.

OTOH, it could have something to do with the way transaction support is set up in the database, right?

reliability and mysql usage