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[rayray]

Well, compared to the speed of many sites we are quite fast, but the needs of future growth require us to get at least two processors. That means the database can run on one, web pages can be served by another, and the future will be excellent.

I'm going to start preparing for a move, and Lucid and I will make sure the database and file integrity are solid. For the most part, nobody will notice any changes until I actually move cyborgcow.net, which a lot of people use for the hostname in their ftp/email configurations. For that reason, I'll get to make sure the move is faster than ever before with various other sites before I make a final move.

We also hit software limitations that require us to upgrade the base Linux distribution in order to proceed without having to possibly cause panic in a production environment. Moving to a fresh and meticulously setup server will increase performance and allow me to bring more features for everybody!

I may recycle moo as the name for the server, and although hugs has been good to us, Dual Xeons will greatly enhance my ability to allocate resources for everyone to use. The decision to do it this month is not final, so I'll post by 5/20/08 if we are moving. The move would then be finished b 5/27/08 - which gives ample time to test and make sure I can access the backups!

[rayray]

I've moved a 30GB website before, but never a 90GB. I'll be moving hardcoredreamer.com first using both rsync and split tars. I may delete all of the thumbnails/derivatives in the gallery to lower the size by 24 gigs and let the new processors churn away at them. This would be nice because it will not affect anyone else if this is the only site on the new server.

I found a server that will actually cost just about the same, and need to decide on how many ips to get.

I also would like to find a solution to converting the character sets/collation for all of the databases that are still on pre Mysql 4 Latin1 instead of Unicode. Its not very simple, but it is not very complicated. I can dump every database and re-import, but databases are very important to have intact.

On the new server I'll also have PostgreSQL running so I can learn to configure that.

With more processing power, I can happily find better uses for RAM-which for now we're doing fine, but I like to have more free than what we run on. Having two Mysql engines really sucks up RAM, so having hardcoredreamer on one site to look at the database usage and requirements will help.

I've also debated over an eon how to use the hard drive i/o more effectively. I believe using the second SATA II drive as the home drive instead of a backup drive - therefore having all websites on one drive and all log/database/config files on the first - and then backing up to the 1st - will allow me to more elegantly use two drives. The downside is that if I don't watch the backup sizes, I could fill up the first drive and there would be no more space for databases to store data and logs to write. Still, the performance increase would be substantial and we would not need to use RAM for extra caching.

I still would like to try lighttpd someday, and having extra ip addresses for it would let me put some sites on a server that doesn't require 40-100 megs of ram per connection - just to download a thumbnail, for instance.

Lucid, if you're still up to it, this would be lots of fun!

[lucid]

I'm always down for whatever, let me know when works best for you if you want me over there for a hacking session.

[rayray]

Okay, we are getting a Dual Xeon 3GHZ with 3GB of 533MHZ RAM and 2 500GB Drives with a total of 5 IP addresses. It will have Centos 5 with Cpanel.

This server's info:
Renew Date:   May/31/2008 07:55:00
Expire Date:   Jun/02/2008 07:55:00

I should hopefully get the root access information for the new server, moo.cyborgcow.net, this evening. Since I ordered upgrades, I hope I don't have to wait until Monday

[rayray]

Still waiting on the server :[