Emergency maintenance on Olga

[sergey]

The server Olga will be rebooted in few minutes for file system check. We will keep you posted.

[sergey]

The server is back online. It's performing a raid initialization at the moment which can cause higher loads than normal.

[morganus]

The Olga server is not being very reliable. The recent few days have seen it crash may times and I have had to repair a number of database errors caused by this. Is there any word as to the reliablity of the server or any chance my site could be moved to a more reliable one.

Morg

[Matt]

The Olga server is not being very reliable. The recent few days have seen it crash may times and I have had to repair a number of database errors caused by this. Is there any word as to the reliablity of the server or any chance my site could be moved to a more reliable one.

Morg

The best bet is to upgrade to an Advanced or Professional shared server. These come with higher uptime guarantees and less sites per server so offer better reliability.

After that we recommend a semi-dedicated server and then dedicated server for the best experience possible.

[rebecca]

I've been experiencing problems with Olga, too-but I have to say that in almost a year of hosting, this is the first time for these issues. I know you'll have it all resolved shortly. Thank you for the reliable service, and thank you for quickly handling the problems that do (inevitably) arrise!

REBECCA

[Matt]

Olga is a "Budget" Server and has almost reached capacity. The reason there was not many issues on that machine in the past was because it was very underused. AKA not as many sites on that machine all competing for the same resources.

Now she is about where she needs to be to be in line with our internal specifications for how Budget servers. Of course we will keep it running as smoothly as possible but its the nature of more sites per server = more frequent problems.

That is why we offer higher uptime guarantees on "Advanced," "Professional" and "Semi-Dedicated" shared servers since they have fewer sites per server, it almost always equates to better performance and less issues.

[rebecca]

Hmmm. Interesting, Matt. Thank you for taking the time to all explain that.

I'm not really savvy with all the different server options. How can one tell if it's time for an upgrade? I started as a VERY small fan site, but now I've gone to a paid membership...and as such my members expect to be able to access the site 24/7. Can you (or anyone else there) take a look at my account and give me a recommendation? I may have outgrown my *budget* class hosting, LOL!

Thanks so much,
Rebecca

[Matt]

Well once you start having paid subscriptions if it were me I would look into a dedicated server if you think that your growth from subscriber fees will eventually (or currently) cover the costs of a dedicated machine. they are MUCH faster and reliable than any shared hosting account could ever hope to be. Nothing turns off subscribers than a slow or down server. But a speedy server with better reliability will actually encourage more paying subscribers.

So if you are looking for 24/7 availability the closest thing you can have to that without getting into some very high-end load-balanced multiple dedicated server setup, would be a managed dedicated server.

You should be able to easily achieved ~99.97% uptime on a single dedicated server. If you need four-nines (99.99%) or five-nines (99.999%) then get ready to start shelling out the dough

A dedicated server is more than enough up time for the vast majority of income producing web sites out there, and a matter of fact, of you are accepting payments especially via credit card you should be on a dedicated server anyways to be in line with credit card industry regulations.