Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : What is considered normal server load?

[scott1995]

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

[stablehost]

It's not that high, however 4-5 isn't considered low either.

[scott1995]

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)

[Jedito]

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.

[dotRoot]

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.

[NeosharesKaos]

I believe anything below 2 means the server load is considered low.

[HS Nick]

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.

[Ashley Merrick]

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.

[JohnJ]

Well, I usually like to keep my servers under 1, but it depends.

[jayh]

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.

[tjohnson3757]

I think the server load under 1 is great, however each server is different.

[EasycPanelXL]

Originally Posted by tjohnson3757

I think the server load under 1 is great, however each server is different.

For a server to be at its max speed it should be anywhere from 0.00 - 0.99

[citricsquid]

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.

[ldcdc]

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.

[iHubNet-Matt]

Originally Posted by EasycPanelXL

For a server to be at its max speed it should be anywhere from 0.00 - 0.99

Seems it depends on how many CPU's are used. Since he said it is a 4 CPU sever Anything around 4 is normal IMO.