Comments on: How Reddit and Digg Killed My Server (Wow. Just wow.)

By: Derek Park

Derek Park — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 18:39:48 +0000

I’m using wp-cache now, but I won’t be able to really find out how capable it is unless I get dugg again. Hopefully it will be sufficient. I hate to go static because then comments will have to be disabled on the page (at least temporarily).

By: BenCode

BenCode — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:57:55 +0000

Not that I've ever gotten any kind of huge traffic, but I'd suggest using some sort of caching. Cut down on CPU and DB connections. If you know that the traffic might be expected maybe just convert the page to a completely static html file. Wordpress has wp-cache, otherwise do something like ILoveJackDaniels.com: Caching output in PHP.

By: Derek Park

Derek Park — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:44:55 +0000

Thanks, Niero. I’ll keep them in mind for the future.

For now, I’m going to stick with BlueHost. They still seem to be about as good as any of the budget hosts, from what I’ve read. I’ve added a caching plugin to wordpress that will hopefully help, but I’ll have to see.

If I start getting dugg on a regular basis, I’ll look into some sort of upgrade path again.

By: Niero

Niero — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:43:27 +0000

Exactly – my smaller sites run on Dreamhost and when they get Dugg they cap the connection limit to 6 per second, so you’re turning away over 200 people per second! There’s really no substitute to dedicated hosting, but even then you’re going to hit some bottlenecks until you set up a load balanced pair. EV1 (now ThePlanet) is fairly reasonable if Servertag doesn’t work out for you.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the articles on your site. Good stuff

By: Gelaed | The Blog » Blog Archive » Slacker Stuff

Gelaed | The Blog » Blog Archive » Slacker Stuff — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:48:14 +0000

[...] got over thirty-eight thousand visits over the past three days. I put up a post discussing how Reddit and Digg killed the server over there. Traffic continued to flow in after that post, but at a much more manageable [...]

By: Derek Park

Derek Park — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 14:55:17 +0000

Thanks for the input, guys. I’m afraid that any of the budget hosts (Dreamhost, GoDaddy) are going to have the same CPU usage problem. From what I’ve seen, both of those two have had hosted sites go down as a result of a Digg.

Servertag looks a little more promising, though I think shared hosting in general is going to have this problem unless I get a pretty high CPU usage cap. Servertag’s dedicated hosting is quite affordable, though. If I go that route, I’ll definitely keep them in mind.

For now, I’ve added caching to my blog, so that should take some of the load off if it gets really hit again.

Again, thanks for the help.

By: AJ

AJ — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 21:47:07 +0000

I also suggest dreamhost.com I use them for my website (click my name) and I used the code AUSTARS for $97 off a 1 year plan, so I ended up paying $22.97 for 1 year of hosting plus a free domain name, and then it will be 10$ a month after.

By: Tino

Tino — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 17:53:54 +0000

I use Servertag.net, talk to the owners Dan and Dan they are very flexible guys and quite dedicated. The price is a little more than your bargain hosts but thus far they have demonstrated to me they are worth it.

Go to their forum and look for sTag-Dan. His profile will have his AIM. Cheers!

By: Anon

Anon — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 10:18:24 +0000

Use GoDaddy.
Most people on Digg recommend this as one of the best.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 07:43:08 +0000

I’d hop over to dreamhost.com. I’ve been using them for a few months now, and I’ve been very happy with how they handle my account. Also, if you want to save some money starting out, use promo code MAX97. It takes $97 off your first year’s hosting bill (level 1 only), bringing it down to somewhere around $20 for 200GB space and 2TB bandwidth per month.