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512MB RAM will be enough for a single website?
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512MB RAM will be enough for a single website?

Hi,
We run a single website (wordpress based) on a Xen VPS server with 1GB RAM. The website gets around 8k - 9k visitors per day and 30k+ page views.

The server is running on nginx, memcached, ngx_pagespeed.

We are thinking to downgrade to a 512MB OVZ or KVM VPS to minimize the cost. Avg. memory consumption stays like this always (check image below).

Your suggestion will be appreciated. Sorry for noob questions, I am new to VPS world

Comments

  • Don't touch it if it works.

    Thanked by 2ska vps_learner
  • Clearly OpenVZ won't work. I think KVM might do, but if on one day your site suddenly grows a lot of visitors, 512MB may fail. I would suggest you stay on 1024MB Xen ( I think it's Linode, and you are thinking of downgrading to Digital Ocean? )

    Thanked by 1vps_learner
  • sleddogsleddog Member
    edited August 2013

    Agree with @serverian.

    Unless you substantially reduce the actual memory consumption (459 MB) then running on a 512MB VPS is asking for trouble. And reconfiguring to reduce memory usage will likely affect performance.

    Thanked by 1vps_learner
  • @sundaymouse said:
    Clearly OpenVZ won't work. I think KVM might do, but if on one day your site suddenly grows a lot of visitors, 512MB may fail. I would suggest you stay on 1024MB Xen ( I think it's Linode, and you are thinking of downgrading to Digital Ocean? )

    Thanks for your response. We may not downgrade but we are probably going to migrate to another provider (KVM) with 1GB RAM. No, it's not Linode and DO. Perhaps we will go with RamNode since they have a 35% promo going on.

  • Good choice I think. I have a few VPSs with Ramnode and they are an excellent provider. KVM with ample RAM for caching is also preferred -- IMO -- to OpenVz.

    Thanked by 1vps_learner
  • Have you tweaked mysql? could you post a screenshot from top

  • @thekreek said:
    Have you tweaked mysql? could you post a screenshot from top

    Some top processes;

  • thekreekthekreek Member
    edited August 2013

    It seems that memcached its the process that its eating most of your memory, but it also helps you keep your site fast.

    The next step would be to optimize wordpress and handle static files outside of your php-fpm process (different subdomain, example: static.domain.com )

    Forgot to ask, how much memory did you asign to memcached?

  • @thekreek said:
    It seems that memcached its the process that its eating most of your memory, but it also helps you keep your site fast.

    The next step would be to optimize wordpress and handle static files outside of your php-fpm process (different subdomain, example: static.domain.com )

    Forgot to ask, how much memory did you asign to memcached?

    Currently memcached max memory set to 256MB

  • I'm all for tweaking :) but trying to squeeze it into 512MB may well affect performance.

    The Ramnode 1GB with discount is a sweet deal.

    I'd suggest you move it first with exactly the same config. Let it run a week, to compare the Ramnode performance with your current provider.

    Then tweak to make the best use of memory.

    Thanked by 1vps_learner
  • agentmishraagentmishra Member, Host Rep

    even a 128 mb ram would work
    openvz would surely work

    use kloxo on centos 5.x 32 bit
    under services switch program to lighttpd+djbdns+bogofilter
    tweak mysql

    your 128 mb ram openvz vps will run 4-5 site having arround 10 visitors per day traffic.
    and if you have a 1gb ram
    you can start a web hosting business.

  • stokestoke Member
    edited August 2013

    @thekreek said:
    It seems that memcached its the process that its eating most of your memory, but it also helps you keep your site fast.

    The next step would be to optimize wordpress and handle static files outside of your php-fpm process (different subdomain, example: static.domain.com )

    I'd love to see more discussion about caching methods, but yes memchached is not designed for low end boxes. However, with the right setup, 512mb (or less!) should be more than sufficient for those visitor numbers.

    The Wordpress Plugin W3 Total Cache works really well for me with nginx. Disk based caching for pages and APC for object & database caching.

    Getting nginx to process static & cache files without php-fpm is easy to do in the config, no subdomain needed.

    There's a good config guide and discussion here

    Thanked by 1vps_learner
  • @vps_learner said:
    Processes

    Transitioning to a more economical VPS, I'd want to get rid of memcached and set up W3 Total Cache with applicable nginx configs.

    The next step would be to make sure that nginx, php-fpm, and mysql are all optimized, namely by how many processes they are allowed to spawn. Typically you'll have one nginx instance for every CPU core, and then as many php-fpm and mysql processes that will fit into your available memory. Based on this screenshot, you could be running many more php-fpm and mysql processes and still have memory left over.

    Thanked by 1vps_learner
  • netomxnetomx Moderator, Veteran

    @agentmishra said:
    even a 128 mb ram would work
    openvz would surely work

    use kloxo on centos 5.x 32 bit
    under services switch program to lighttpd+djbdns+bogofilter
    tweak mysql

    your 128 mb ram openvz vps will run 4-5 site having arround 10 visitors per day traffic.
    and if you have a 1gb ram
    you can start a web hosting business.

    is this spam?!

  • vps_learnervps_learner Member
    edited August 2013

    @stoke
    thanks. i will try out W3TC soon. So far I was using wp-ffpc (http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-ffpc/) with memcached. But, I am gonna try W3TC to check out.

  • Mildly off-topic but what are you using to get a nice layout of your processes like that?

  • @RiskyRango said:
    Mildly off-topic but what are you using to get a nice layout of your processes like that?

    That is taken from NewRelic :)

  • Nah that's disappointing heh. Thanks for the quick reply!

  • agentmishraagentmishra Member, Host Rep

    @netomx said:
    is this spam?!

    yes people like you would always take things as spam

  • Have you consireded using APC cache instead of memcached.
    Also if your going to use a static page cache with wordpress it will help a lot if you leave the comments to a third party (disqus).
    Remember the static page will be served to anonymous users, logged user's load the page from php.

  • @serverian said:
    Don't touch it if it works.

    Totally Agree!

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep
    edited August 2013

    If you're switching to RamNode, seems like 512 MB OpenVZ would work well, since it comes with 512 MB vSwap too.

  • netomxnetomx Moderator, Veteran

    @agentmishra said:
    yes people like you would always take things as spam

    so, that's spam

  • BrianHarrisonBrianHarrison Member, Patron Provider

    @serverian said:
    Don't touch it if it works.

    Good advice IMHO. Ask yourself:

    1. What sort of monthly savings will I attain by downgrading?
    2. How much advertising revenue will I jeopardize if that downgrade goes poorly?
  • How much of your memory usage are you using so far?

  • Most ad funded sites have no say whatsoever in the selling price of their ad inventory. So they can't improve revenue but can cut down on costs. The temptation is always there to reduce costs by chasing the cheapest hosting deal. But there is usually some downtime when you do this especially when you are doing it for the first time. Downtime means lost ad revenue. So my advice is to not switch hosts.

  • agentmishraagentmishra Member, Host Rep

    @netomx said:
    so, that's spam

    i should have personally meet you

  • Would easily go on a 512MB OpenVZ as you do not lose memory due to the Kernel.

  • You can minimize cost by converting to one of the cheaper 1-2GB RAM OpenVZ plans. My sites (8 wordpress sites) consume an average of 500 MB RAM. However I am on a semi annual 2GB plan just to be safe.

  • @vps_learner said:
    Hi,
    We run a single website (wordpress based) on a Xen VPS server with 1GB RAM. The website gets around 8k - 9k visitors per day and 30k+ page views.

    The server is running on nginx, memcached, ngx_pagespeed.

    We are thinking to downgrade to a 512MB OVZ or KVM VPS to minimize the cost. Avg. memory consumption stays like this always (check image below).

    Your suggestion will be appreciated. Sorry for noob questions, I am new to VPS world

    Why not try it for a while then switch back if its affects the site?

    I doubt the site will use 500mb, the webserver uses more ram the more ram you have in the system, so a lot of that apparently used ram might never be called. 512mb should be more than enough for a website like you described.

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