?

That's a general question.

I'd say about 2,500

2500


hardly, if there is any sort of scripting involved or mysql then you will barely get 50-100. I would say your memory is going ot run out first and you will be dipping into swap.

You cannot give a definitive answer to these question, there is no set formula where cpu speed + memory = x where x is the number of sites.

Quite simply, I could put 1 site on it and max the server out, or you could have 2500 sites that do virtually no traffic, consist of a few html pages and the server could handle it fine.

We did some benchmarking for a managed server customer last year with similar hardware - p3 600, 128 ram, 20gb 5400rpm ide drive.

The site made relatively extensive use of php and mysql.

Performance started suffering at 5-6 HTTP requests/second.

sure, it can host 2500 sites just as long as nobody visits those sites and has no traffic.

But then again lets ask something different. How much can such as server take? We have one client who has been on a dedicated for a long time and only has 128 megs and on a P3 450 running 7.2 and a single IDE 5400HD.

It has a popular UBB cgi (version) bboard, has around 3000 members and has around 6000 pictures in their gallery. The traffic is an average 210 GB per month.

AVG 7 GB per day and the UBB running as the most popular application.

NO PHP, NO MYSQL, only lots of cgis.

Not bad for a crummy box right? Works fine, but it required serious tweeking.