Greetings,

I have been reading a great deal of posts in these forums over the last few days and now have some questions of my own to ask regarding dedicated server configurations and such. Im looking at leasing a dedicated server with the following configuration.

Intel Pentium III 750 Mhz
512 MB SDRAM
50 GB EIDE
Dual Embedded 10/100 NICs
RedHat 6.2

My first question has to do with bandwidth. Is there a maximum amount of bandwidth a sepcific hardware setup can reasonably handle? If so, what would that max limit be for the above config?

How many users can live comfortably on a server with the above configuration? What can be added to increase the number of users per server?

Is there a bandwidth to user ratio i should consider when looking at amounts of bandwidth offered with an account? If i have 500 users and i offer my users 5 GB with their accounts, how much bandwidth should i actually be sure to have so my users receive what they pay for? Also, is there any way of tracking bandwidth usage for non-ip virtual host accounts?

Thanks for your help!

Depending on how much writing is going on your drives you could add a second drive to split some of that. What I mean is if you have a popular site that has a message forum such as vbulletin, you could have your MySQL run on the other hard drive.

-BW

Originally posted by sabolchi
Greetings,


Intel Pentium III 750 Mhz
512 MB SDRAM
50 GB EIDE
Dual Embedded 10/100 NICs
RedHat 6.2


How many users can live comfortably on a server with the above configuration? What can be added to increase the number of users per server?

Is there a bandwidth to user ratio i should consider when looking at amounts of bandwidth offered with an account? If i have 500 users and i offer my users 5 GB with their accounts, how much bandwidth should i actually be sure to have so my users receive what they pay for? Also, is there any way of tracking bandwidth usage for non-ip virtual host accounts?

Thanks for your help!

I would not put more than 200 normal accounts on this server. This may seem like a low amount in regards to most Hosting companies standards but I dont like to overload the servers.

Bandwidth to user ratio is hard to determine because each person will have different usages. Most normal clients will use less than 1 GB. However keep in mind a good size, highly active forum will use 4+ GB. Most Hosts use the Bandwidth game. Even though they might have a 50 GB monthly limit they will offer packages with high bandwidth limits counting on that limit will not be reached. Using this method allows you to add more clients to the server. If each client were to use their allowed monthly bandwidth. The host would probably end up paying a huge overage fee for bandwidth usage. Rarely is this the case though and it is pretty safe to assume the limits will not be reached unless they are hosting an Image site , Adult site or Warez site.