Ok, I came across a fix today. During the day our site was slowing down to a screeching halt and I originally thought more RAM would fix the problem.

After digging into my configuration a little more I discovered that our backups are HUGE! Original backups used to take us just a few minutes, but, now they are taking longer due to the sheer size of our database, graphics, and overall system. This is very common for an active site like ours.

Anyway, because of this increase, my backups were beginning to overlap in time. Thus, causing a series of backups to run at the same time. Two and three backups were eventually running simultaneously causing the site to suffer for resources (memory, cpu, etc).

It also doesn't help that I accidentially scheduled the backups to start at 11am! I picked the wrong side of the clock because I should have picked 23 (or 11pm).

The fix was to allow enough time to pass between backups and also start the whole process at 1am (instead of 11am). All of these times are US Pacific Time (-8GMT).

The site should no longer experience slow-downs in the middle of the day.

Yes, RAM would have helped this problem. But, it was an unnecessary expense to cover up a problem that would have manifested itself after another year or so anyway.

Over.

If I can get the same result without spending money, I'm always happy with that. What's not to like?

Thanks Mike, I was this close to "hitting any key" with a sledge hammer, thought it was MY computer again.

You ROCK man, I'd tell you I love you if I knew nothing weird would come of it, (hahaha)

Dave

Thats all fine and dandy for the people in America, but all of us poor Aussies, Kiwies and other people on this timeline have to suffer now(ment in the least aggressive tone possible). Doesnt concern me too much anyway, the site loads fairly slowly for me anyways. I dont know why. I guess because crappy Windows cant remember a simple banner to appear at the top of the screen. :mad:

Anyhoo, must give you a sence of pride knowing that the site has grown to the size it has and is incountering 'big site problems'

Cheer'z'

Chris

Originally posted by datto_240z

Thats all fine and dandy for the people in America, but all of us poor Aussies, Kiwies and other people on this timeline have to suffer now

I suspect that the real problem was the overlapping backups, not the fact that it was happening at a peak usage time in the US. Presumably Mike knows when the peak time is and has scheduled the backup accordingly. Hopefully you guys will be Ok even with this change.

When will it be nessisary for some new equipment? I'm sure a contribution fund drive will cover the expense ( I know I'll be in for a few $$.00

Well atleast its working again.

Originally posted by Victor Laury

When will it be nessisary for some new equipment? I'm sure a contribution fund drive will cover the expense ( I know I'll be in for a few $$.00

Us too:classic:

Scott & Vicky

I could put up a little, but not all that much. Wish i could help more.

Selling T Shirts might be a good way to start the fund.

Put me down for 2) mediums

Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback on this... MikeW is correct in his statement. The backups were overlapping causing a big slowdown. It also didn't help that our slowdown occured during on of our peak use times.

If you look at it closely, we had a lot of things happening at the same time which was causing us to see huge lags in server response. By spreading these out and running them during non-peak times we will be able to operate as if nothing were going on in the background.

Anyway, just a bunch of server mumbo-jumbo.

I do have hats coming, T-shirts are next. Just need to decide on the design and we'll have them in a jiffy. I'm also looking at server upgrades, but, that will be awhile. The new software is still in development and I'll probably launch both at the same time.