Some of you may have been experiencing slowdowns, pages not loading, and other issues on here. I’ve recently been getting nasty-grams from my hosting provider saying they have had to limit my site lately due to it using too many resources and affecting other sites. I guess this is a good problem to have, but it is still a problem I have to address. I have been experiencing errors when I make updates to pages or add new images to the public galleries.
After I started seeing more errors on my side, I took a look at my traffic and usage reports. Although I’m supposed to have “unlimited” traffic, loading images and other resource intensive aspects is putting too much strain on the shared server. I get like 512 MB memory and like half a virtual processor. Not very big for my website to be transferring 25-30 GB of data a month and over 1,000 page hit/views a day. Again…a good problem to have because I’m growing more than I thought I would, and with the new features, additional galleries, and a social network feature for you to add media, I’m going to need a lot more power.
To solve the problem, I have upgraded to a dedicated Virtual Private Server giving me a full processor, 4 GB of Memory (8 times what I have now), and a capability to scale more easily when needed. I have currently disabled new registrations until I complete the updates. The only drawback is I have to purchase additional software and some compatibility issues with certain features.
I’m currently transferring data and doing backups of everything, and you shouldn’t notice anything different on your end. Hopefully, you will see improvements in performance and speed. Some upgrades are able to be done automatically, but some will have to be done manually which takes additional time. Once I get everything up and running in the new server, I will either post a link or send out targeted emails to users asking for tests. I can do some testing on my side, but I would like to have feedback from different users around the world. Most of my traffic is coming from the US, but I get a lot from the UK and Europe in general. Surprisingly, I’m getting visitors from every continent!!
My goal is to have a complete switch-over by the end of February. The biggest challenges are the image galleries and the user database. I’m hoping I can just import the user database ensure proper mapping to data elements. If I have to recreate a lot of stuff, then it will certainly take longer. Either way it has to be done so I can keep up with the growing traffic.
Stay nude my friends,