Thinking of migrating to a new dedicated server, what do you think?

I’ve been with LiquidWeb, on the same dedicated server, since 2009. Clearly things have changed quite a bit since then, and I think I can get a much faster server for less money. If at all possible I’ll be sticking with LiquidWeb, as they’ve been nothing short of amazing. Other hosts I might consider are RackSpace and WiredTree, but they’re quite a bit more expensive. I do require a managed host, and hosting with a large company who owns their own datacenters makes me sleep better at night. If I did go with another host, it’d be nice to find one in the Western US, since that is where 70% of my visitors are from.

This server is used for the sole purpose of hosting a few XenForo forums, so MySQL performance is of utmost importance. Current RAM usage is about 6GB on average (and can easily be upgraded), and I don’t use near my CPU capacity. Where I think I’d see a big performance increase is in an SSD setup, but I’m not sure.

Current Configuration – $309/month:

- Dual Xeon E5506 Quad Core
- 8GB DDR3 SDRAM
- 2 x SATA 250 GB Hardware RAID 1
- 250 GB SATA backup
- Linux CentOS 5
- LiteSpeed 2 CPU Core License
- cPanel/WHM

Potential Configuration 1 – $216/month:

- Intel Xeon E3-1220 V2 3.1GHZ, Quad Core
- 8GB DDR3 SDRAM
- 2 x SATA Software RAID 1
- 1TB SATA Backup Drive
- Linux CentOS 6
- LiteSpeed 2 CPU Core License
- cPanel/WHM

Potential Configuration 2 – $346/month:

- Intel Xeon E3-1270 3.5GHZ, Quad Core
- 8GB DDR3 SDRAM
- 2 x SATA 1 TB Hardware RAID 1
- 4 x SSD Kingston Hyper-X 120GB Hardware Raid 10
- 1TB SATA Backup Drive
- Linux CentOS 6
- LiteSpeed 2 CPU Core License
- cPanel/WHM

What do you guys think?

I love SSD drives, and as you mentioned you are going to have SQL usage on the server so the second configuration is 100% better than the first one. Even the software raid in the first configuration is risky for your business. So go with the second, you will have more security and speed ( Hardware raid and SSD )

Thanks for the replies guys. I’m really hoping the SSD’s will make a big difference, and I’m willing to pay a bit more for that performance. To answer your question, Mike A, my SSD options were this:

1. 2 x 120GB RAID 1 – $60/mo.
2. 2 x 240GB RAID 1 – $100/mo.
3. 4 x 120GB RAID 10 – $100/mo.

I figured for the extra $40 it’d be worth it to pick up a bit more performance from the RAID 10 (based on what I’ve read so far). I only have a few databases, and my largest one is 6GB, so I don’t think I’ll run out of space.

Two SSDs would be fine in RAID 1 seeing as you’re only hosting a single website. What you should consider about the E3-1220 is it doesn’t have hyper threading whilst the E3-1270 does, though your current CPU doesn’t have it either.

I’d probably go with SSD as you’re running MySQL, you’d see better performance out of SSDs, but as it’s only for your single site RAID 1 would be fine.

Awesome, a game plan is starting to form here. To be clear, I host 6 XenForo sites from this server, but only one has any traffic to speak of at this point.

- It sounds like nearly everyone is in agreement that 2 SSD’s in RAID 1 should be sufficient.

- I’ll see if I can learn how to analyze my memory usage to ensure I’m not coming close to using the 8GB. If I am I’ll go with the 16GB option. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t more expensive to upgrade at a later date, so it might be a smart move regardless.

- What are the thoughts on the older but faster E3-1270 vs the newer E3-1220 for $30 per month? Would my application benefit more from hyperthreading or the new instruction set?

Regarding hosting providers, I can’t think of anything negative to say of LiquidWeb aside from I’ve found their prices to be a bit high. I’m currently hosting at HostVenom and Hivelocity, personally.

Check the LEMP stack guide in my signature for some detailed MySQL advice, but

1) Assuming you keep most of your MySQL tables as InnoDB, you will do better to have twin RAID 1′s, one holding your database, the other your doublewrite logs (ibdata1, after all tables have been put onto file_per_table, ALTER TABLE all of your tables). RAID 10 is not all that beneficial for four-drive setups.

My single-server recommendation would be to go with a three+ volume setup

1- Database drive, SSD preferred
2- Doublewrite drive, can get away with a platter drive, a modern SSD is better, but not worth the money at your level.
3- Everything else, platter drive is fine. Nothing else goes on the first two drives, ever.

Another dedicated backup drive is okay, but at your level you might feel safer dumping backups to volume 3 there, and sending things to an offsite VPS.

RAID is not really necessary in this scenario. At HostVenom I have a slave server providing instantaneous backups instead.