best host for db hosting

[Paullas]

just looking for people ideas/reccon on best uk hosts to host a quite big website with thousands of products on.

Im using PT and still yet to find a good host as the mysql is very big and the site is lagging.
I have tried splitting the dbs but no good.

thanks in advance.

 

[monaghan]

The problem with shared hosting is just that... you have to share resources and you only have to be sitting on the same host as someone with a badly optimised database and your performance drops as well. I had a customer who was using a WP plugin that queried a large forum database with a non-keyed query on every page load, performance was of course pants.

If you have a very large database and you need high performance, then I'd suggest using a dedicated server and popping the database on a different physical disk to the web server and application code. Throw a good chunk of RAM for the database server to use as a cache. If it is really big, then you can look at splitting the tables over multiple disks, but that's extreme optimisation for most cases and you really need to understand the structure and data movements around the application to determine what's best.

Often you will find that you can start on a lowly populated server, then as the host sells more packages, your fast server will slow down.

Are all your queries optimised so that they use an index? Is the field list and the WHERE clause restricting to just the data you need? Are your indexes optimal for the queries you are running? If not these simple steps will improve your performance significantly.

 

[nick-harper]

How many products / queries are you talking?

 

[Blossom]

Yes, agree with monaghan. Dedi or VPS is better for that kind of thing.

 

[jimm]

Shared hosting may be acceptable for starting off untill it gets really busy. Just dont get a £10 per year account, actually get a decent account which provides decent limits. Shameless self plug but we offer premium shared accounts which give a lot more of a server for each account (ie large server with a low number of accounts on) but they actually cost a lot more than a basic shared account. This means you get the server looked after like a shared server so no overheads there and you have the huge burst-ability of a large dedi without the cost. This usually works out a lot better for most than a small to medium vps!

 

[monaghan]

A VPS is only as good as the loading on the host node, you can easily get the same issues on a VPS as you get on an overloaded shared hosting node.

Dedicated or quality shared hosting is the only way.

If you have a critical site and depend on it for your income, then go somewhere where you know they will manage the loads properly or go down the dedicated route and either way be prepared to pay for a "proper job".

 

[Paullas]

sorry for delay in answering.

i am on cloud hosting, 4gb ram, 3cpu etc so there is only me on it and only affects me. products is just over 1 million (as using feeds from affiliate window) and also using price tapestry.

 

[namestrands]

I would go for a Dedicated Server Running FREEBSD for large database sites. One of our servers that has the entire TLD zone file database on it and is running 24/7 for serps and such.. 95 Million Records. Not a problem.

Company - RapidSwitch.com

 

[Paullas]

I would go for a Dedicated Server Running FREEBSD for large database sites. One of our servers that has the entire TLD zone file database on it and is running 24/7 for serps and such.. 95 Million Records. Not a problem.

Company - RapidSwitch.com

thanks, will take a look today..

 

[jimm]

Unless you know what you are doing with FreeBSD dont go that route!
Its not an OS you can just have a go with and expect it to run well.
It can be a very stable OS, when run right but it does bite (and so does the user community ).
The server you have now should be able to handle that size db unless the db is a mess, in which case just throwing more and more hardware at isnt really a good option.

 

[monaghan]

sorry for delay in answering.

i am on cloud hosting, 4gb ram, 3cpu etc so there is only me on it and only affects me. products is just over 1 million (as using feeds from affiliate window) and also using price tapestry.

Sounds like you need to spend a little time optimising the database and the queries that are run on it. Also check your SQL Server settings, you may be able to do much more with it. Look at index use, slow queries and so on.

As mentioned above, throwing hardware at an inefficient database will not solve anything for long.

 

[Paullas]

Sounds like you need to spend a little time optimising the database and the queries that are run on it. Also check your SQL Server settings, you may be able to do much more with it. Look at index use, slow queries and so on.

As mentioned above, throwing hardware at an inefficient database will not solve anything for long.

yeah jimm is having a peak for me so fingers crossed all will be ok

 

[aquanuke]

Theres a nice mysql script that will check all your settings, like query cache, slow queries etc etc if you have alot of slow queries then sure sign your indexes are not good.

http://day32.com/MySQL/

The top link

 

[Paullas]

Theres a nice mysql script that will check all your settings, like query cache, slow queries etc etc if you have alot of slow queries then sure sign your indexes are not good.

http://day32.com/MySQL/

The top link

great stuff, will look at that. thanks.....

 

[aquanuke]

oh and if you do alot of searching make sure you use FULLTEXT search

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-search.html

 

[monaghan]

yeah jimm is having a peak for me so fingers crossed all will be ok

He seems to know what he's talking about, so all should be good, I'd have offered, but I've been shifting kitchen worktops and cupboards ready for the plumber to move my sink

 

[Paullas]

He seems to know what he's talking about, so all should be good, I'd have offered, but I've been shifting kitchen worktops and cupboards ready for the plumber to move my sink

yeah he certanly does and no prbs mate.

just hoping i get this sorted tbh

 

[jimm]

He seems to know what he's talking about,

You will make me blush lol