The MacDeskBlog

I followed my friend John Engler’s advice, albeit almost a year later, and signed up with DreamHost. I haven’t decided yet whether or not to stick with them. Here’s what I’m weighing …

Designated MySQL server
One-Click installations of WordPress and phpBB, which I already use, and a couple of other products which I may start to use
Transparency about downtimes and service impacts
High disk and bandwidth quotas for a low price
Pretty quick responses from support

Doesn’t support MySQL database replication
Doesn’t support DNS slave setup, and some non-configurable entries in DNS management interface are incorrect, so their DNS is unusable for me
Downtimes and service impacts appear to be fairly common
Linux
Pretty inflexible responses from support

Performance under load
Database performance
Implementation effort required to replicate MySQL via scripting

So, that’s where I am right now. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them here on the blog.

6 comments on “New server?”

john

October 12th, 2006 at 16:30

let me know where to send the referral fee via paypal.

sdayman

October 21st, 2006 at 06:46

* Why do you need database replication? It’s easy to script database backups for later recovery. The fact that DreamHost offers shell access opens up fantastic opportunities.

* If you want an extra-fancy DNS setup, you may have to go with a third party DNS provider, *but* DreamHost support can change those non-configurable DNS entries.

* Downtimes were a recent rough spot, but I feel that they continuously improve their setup and really do care about their reputation.

* Linux is a Con? Why? If it’s just because we’re all pro-Mac, then I don’t really consider it an operational Con.

* What do you mean by inflexible responses from support? If it’s that they’re not helpful, I don’t find that to be the case. Once I get a human response, we’ve been able to resolve any problems I’ve had.

* I don’t know what kind of load you put on your server, but DreamHost has stated that they do their best to accommodate high load sites by not keeping them on servers that already have a high load. The same probably goes for database performance.

Ryan Walker

October 24th, 2006 at 10:10

John,

I’d be psyched to get it. The donation form on MacDesktops, http://macdesktops.com/?option=donate, will send you to PayPal with the destination address filled in for you.

Thanks!

Ryan

Ryan Walker

October 28th, 2006 at 08:03

* MacDesktops uses database replication to provide redundancy. When the primary database is unavailable for any reason including high load, running out of connections, or crashing, the site uses the secondary database.

* I asked DreamHost support to switch my DNS from master to slave, which is the simplest customization I could have them make, and the support guy told me that they only provide the DNS included in the administration pages, and that is not an included option.

* I’m glad to hear that you feel that their downtimes were just a recent rough spot.
* Linux is only a little Con. I prefer serving on Mac OS X Server because I get GUI tools and know exactly where everything is. With Linux, each service provider uses a slightly different version of Linux and an entirely different user configuration structure. It’s just less friendly.

* The inflexible responses from support referred my request for DNS slave setup and MySQL replication setup. In each case, the support person was friendly and acted helpful without being willing to actually help.

* When I moved the site to GoDaddy (running themselves out of business one customer at a time), the MySQL load caused problems. It turned out to be a bug which had not shown up on Mac OS X Server, but did in their configuration of Linux. When I have needed to serve pictures, pages, and database all from the same server, the server has run out of file handles. In a shared environment, these types of problems could occur at lower thresholds depending upon who else is on the file and database servers. This isn’t a problem right now, but it is an unknown.

john

October 29th, 2006 at 21:11

sent. hope it helps.

Ryan, do you store the images in the database? or do you just store pointers to files that are served somewhere else?
i haven’t looked at your code in years… is there a better way to do it in a shared hosting environment perhaps?

Ryan Walker

January 26th, 2007 at 14:34

The picture files are stored in the file system. The code builds the path and file name based upon a few fields in the database. At present, the pictures are being served by a separate server from the pages.

New server?

6 comments on “New server?”

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