We currently run two servers (UNIX Intel P4 2.53 GHz) with a load balance addition. Whilst we’ve been told this is more than suitable for our needs, we are finding this is not the case. We use the servers for simple swf file downloads and nothing else, a typical file will vary in size from 150k to 750k. Speed of initial file download start is business critical. We tend to have high volume of file call ups in peaks of traffic.

When we are running at 10Mb/s across the two servers everything is fine – a file will start to download in 1 second on broadband and 5 seconds on dial-up. But when we have a heavy day this will peak at 60-80 Mb/s across the two servers and file call up slows down (5 & 15 seconds respectfully) and we get interrupted file downloads. We are told the servers could cope with 120 Mb/s combined, but at half this we find the servers are struggling. Have we got the right set up? Do we need more powerful servers? Do we need more (loathed to do this as our business could require endless servers as it grows)? Are we right to use dedicated servers – should we be on a distributed server network?