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04-05-2009, 06:00 PM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
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What is considered normal server load?
Hello, a certain host I've been with for over 6 months now experiences what I would consider always very high server load. The server load is normally around 4-6ish, rarely below that. A few times a day it spikes to around 12ish, sometimes even more. The server has 4 cpus. Is this just some really big time overselling? They had downtime once for 2 days when a server crashed, and after that the server load has been really high, when before that it was normally around 1-2, and in the 0.50s
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04-05-2009, 06:02 PM #2Web Hosting Master
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It's not that high, however 4-5 isn't considered low either.
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04-05-2009, 06:05 PM #3Junior Guru Wannabe
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Ok thanks. I just worry that the server is gonna crash every time I see the load going really high (has been at 20 before, although rarely)
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04-05-2009, 06:20 PM #4Web Hosting Master
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Is not extremely high but you may notice some slowdown on the process, this is not fixed though, you can get really high loads without any slowness too.
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04-05-2009, 06:23 PM #5Web Hosting Master
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Have you sent a ticket to their support to let them know? I'm not saying that they aren't paying attention, but if they haven't had any problems, they may have missed watching its load.
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04-05-2009, 06:28 PM #6Junior Guru Wannabe
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I believe anything below 2 means the server load is considered low.
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04-05-2009, 06:45 PM #7WHT Addict
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As you said the server has 4 CPU's. This means that anything under a server load: 4 is good to see.
I wouldn't worry to much about 4-6 as the load number. However, 20 is not good. So maybe bring this to your hosts attention.
Keep in mind that other factors besides for CPU usage factors into the server load number you see. Such as I/O wait time, ect.█ HostingScene - Reliable web hosting since 2003!
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04-05-2009, 07:54 PM #8Web Hosting Master
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Average Server Load on Linux is not just worked out by the Current CPU usage, the average load can increase due to I/O wait via either hard disk read and writes or network activity.
If your site's are still performing ok and the load is under 2 x CPU Count then you should be ok, however it may be best to pop your hosting company a support ticket altering/asking them.ZXPlay
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04-05-2009, 08:52 PM #9Web Hosting Master
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Well, I usually like to keep my servers under 1, but it depends.
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04-06-2009, 12:38 AM #10Junior Guru Wannabe
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It all depends on what the load is caused by. Also in my tests, I am getting twice the performance from a single Xeon 5310 quad verse a Q6600 quad at the same load values. So the load can be quite different depending on the CPUs, RAM and type of drives. Just a generic answer but just trying to show that that load may not be a bad thing at all but it could be.
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04-06-2009, 05:04 AM #11Web Hosting Guru
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I think the server load under 1 is great, however each server is different.
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04-06-2009, 05:28 AM #12Web Hosting Guru
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04-06-2009, 08:56 AM #13Web Hosting Master
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Server load means nothing; do your sites load fine? If they don't, then leave, if they do, then stay. Ignore server load, it can mislead.
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04-06-2009, 09:36 AM #14Retired Moderator
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A high load is a warning sign. But it's not much more than this. If performance is affected, do ask the host to investigate. 2 days downtime is bad, no matter how you look at it. There should be a very serious explanation behind it, and detailed measures attempting to avoid it from happening again.
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04-06-2009, 09:38 AM #15Web Hosting Master
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04-06-2009, 05:55 PM #16Junior Guru Wannabe
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04-09-2009, 03:52 PM #17Junior Guru Wannabe
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Yikes, just logged into Cpanel and saw this:
Server Load 25.38 (4 cpus)
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04-09-2009, 03:54 PM #18Web Hosting Master
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It depends, backups can spike it... but if they are doing backups during the day, I'd hope they are using something like R1Soft or something that has a very small footprint.
If backups make the cpu jump to 25 in the middle of the day, it's generally a bad idea to do them as your customers will notice
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04-09-2009, 04:14 PM #19WHT Addict
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04-09-2009, 04:44 PM #20Junior Guru Wannabe
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04-09-2009, 05:38 PM #21Retired Moderator
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04-09-2009, 05:39 PM #22Web Hosting Master
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Correct, R1 is very lightweight.
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04-09-2009, 06:07 PM #23Aspiring Evangelist
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There is really no way to tell you what is high but this is how our company figures what is a high server load for our clients. All of our servers have at least QuadCore (4 CPUs) + 8GB Ram, we never want to see a server load above 4.00, yes 4.00 is not high but we follow the rule of every CPU we have we do not want to see a server load go beyond that. However, one of our servers did have a server load of 8.00 before and that was due to a MySQL issue and there was really no server slowness, but for the most part if we see a server load of 4.00 or greater we monitor that server closely and see what is going on that is causing that serer to have that server load.
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04-09-2009, 06:13 PM #24Aspiring Evangelist
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Just another note:
Server Load 25.38 (4 cpus)
We would have put that server in front of us and have restarted that server. That is a server handling a little too much processes, accounts, domains, programs, etc. They must have their backup software set at a high priority but it should be set at a low priority because there are websites/accounts, etc. and the client should be responsible for the backup of websites, that is why it should be set to low priority. The hosting company should not be relied on for backups because things do happen but all backups that hosts do should be done at low traffic times and at a normal/low priority to prevent such overload.
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04-09-2009, 07:54 PM #25Junior Guru Wannabe
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