Post by: bearpaw on July 19, 2011, 03:08:31 PM
There were about 130-140 people online when I added the blocks to the other boards. I added one block at a time to all boards and all boards seemed to work great. One thing I definitely noticed, the load time for a board was doubled or tripled with all the blocks added, which meant much slower load times for users with slower connections.
An hour or two later in the afternoon traffic picked up to 200+ people which began to overload the server. I believe that is why some posts were lost, the server was overloaded and did not recognize all posts.
Because the server was overloaded I had a hard time logging in to remove the "blocks" from any of the boards. In order to get the forum working as best as quickly as possible, I was finally able to log into the server, I removed the blocks from all the boards, except the forum home page. Immediately the forum boards operated faster than before I had added any blocks to the boards.
What I learned is that our server ($120 monthly) is definitely limited, outdated, and close to being overloaded more frequently. As the forum grows this problem will occur more often. For now I have the forum set to get by with the current server as long as possible. I have checked and a server upgrade will be about ($200 per month) but that should make us good for a lot of growth if we upgraded.
Since many of our users are limited by connection speeds the users on slower connections may not like the blocks added to the forum boards anyway. So with all this in mind I need to ask a few questions to learn what will work best for everyone.
Please try to vote at least 4 times:
1. Is the forum faster today than a couple days ago?
2. How many boards should have blocks?
3. How soon should we upgrade the server?
4. What's the best way to pay for an upgrade?
Please post any comments you may have, that is why I posted these questions.
Thanks, Dale
Post by: 7mag. on July 19, 2011, 03:28:23 PM
Post by: bearmanric on July 19, 2011, 04:36:36 PM
Post by: Heredoggydoggy on July 19, 2011, 07:32:07 PM
Post by: bearpaw on July 19, 2011, 08:04:27 PM
I am going to add the blocks back to the general discussion board for a day or so before adding them back to any other boards. You guys with slow connections please comment on how fast that board loads compared to other boards.
Please keep voting... and let me know your thoughts. :tup:
Post by: bearpaw on July 20, 2011, 09:00:45 AM
Post by: addicted on August 19, 2011, 05:45:10 AM
Post by: Huntbear on August 19, 2011, 06:42:31 AM
Post by: Bean Counter on August 19, 2011, 07:50:50 AM
Although, some of the resident libs would ask how much is in each of our wallets and then say "Well Bill over there has more money than I do so he should pay more." :chuckle: :chuckle: :chuckle: