By dnguyen on
Anyone have any tips on, with a standard Dreamhost/Drupal situation, how to optimize loading performance? I've barely started a site with a fairly basic configuration and about ten nodes and navigating to a node can take 5-10 seconds. I skimmed the optimization guides but don't know how much of that is applicable to a commercial hosting situation.
Comments
Hmm
Not very promising is it? Which release of Drupal? How many modules are you using?
For 5.x, make sure you have caching and CSS Optimization turned on.
Nancy W.
now running 4 sites on Drupal so far
NancyDru
Using Drupal 5.1...Have CCK
Using Drupal 5.1...Have CCK (and a few CCK-related modules), Views, Image, and Devel...
So should I ditch Dreamhost or what?
Leave Dreamhost?
That's what I did. The results were worth it. :)
--
John Forsythe
Blamcast - Custom Drupal Themes and more...
DreamHost's MySQL servers
DreamHost's MySQL servers are terribly slow, the webservers (Apache & PHP) are fast enough, especially if you install eAccelerator!
Questions
Is that something complicated to install ?
Also, no one mentioned whether they should run Apache as CGI or not. The default is CGI on DreamHost.
The below links are to my personal site on DreamHost. I would say that it's fast at night, and quite slow in the afternoon.
I have cache enabled (I have 4.7 running).
Caroline
Who am I | Where are we
11 heavens
opcode cache for dummies
setting it up is so easy, i could do it!
http://devbee.com/opcode_cache_for_dummies
--
Drupal tips, tricks and services
http://devbee.com/ - Effective Drupal
--
Devbee - http://devbee.net/
Dreamhost isn't too bad
I've got a standard install running under Dreamhost. With caching turned on a guest user gets a pretty quick response. But some pages can be slow for a logged in user.
Interesting comment about the MySQL servers. Is that because they're on a separate server to the webserver?
I like Dreamhost in that it seems to be pretty good value for money and pretty good service when you have a problem. Has anyone who used Dreamhost found someone they like a lot better?
I have an account at
I have an account at Dreamhost (about $23 for the first year, using a coupon!) but I've only tinkered with the account. My drupal sites are hosted at site5.com. I've dozens of modules installed, including some minor hacks of my own, and pages render in 1.5 seconds or less most of the time (even for logged in users). I'm quite pleased with the response times.
For price, features & even support response I'd give site5 excellent grades.
BUT the server I'm on has become a 'problem' server, with 'spike' periods of super heavy loads (I've seen the load go to over 500 just before crashing!), crashes and some extended downtime recently. Support has responded quickly, but It is sufficiently bad that I'm actively looking at alternative hosts. To paraphrase Mae West: When they are good, they are very good. But when they are bad....
Since I have an account at Dreamhost & they are widely discussed here at Drupal, I thought I'd give it a try. But I have to say the MySQL issue is a real concern and I don't feel inclined to invest the effort of migrating my sites over to Dreamhost, only to find poor MySQL response.
Confirming slow MySQL at Dreamhost
Just to check out the reports that MySQL was slow at Dreamhost, I moved a db for a large-ish site of mine from Site5 to Dreamhost, and turned on the devel.module to time some MySQL queries. Dreamhost really is much slower:
my site under drupal 4.7.4 on site5 (first number is the SQL query time in milliseconds):
msec
0.14 0 drupal_lookup_path SELECT src FROM te_url_alias WHERE dst = 'blog'
0.12 0 drupal_lookup_path SELECT src FROM te_url_alias WHERE dst = 'feedback'
0.11 0 drupal_lookup_path SELECT src FROM te_url_alias WHERE dst = 'admin/newsletter'
0.1 0 drupal_lookup_path SELECT src FROM te_url_alias WHERE dst = 'admin/settings/feedback'
0.12 0 drupal_lookup_path SELECT src FROM te_url_alias WHERE dst = 'node/add/blog'
0.11 0 drupal_lookup_path SELECT src FROM te_url_alias WHERE dst = 'admin/settings/privatemsg'
0.1 0 drupal_lookup_path SELECT src FROM te_url_alias WHERE dst = 'node/add/simplenews'
same site zts.com drupal 5.1 on dreamhost:
msec
40.71 1 drupal_lookup_path SELECT dst FROM te_url_alias WHERE src = 'admin/settings/devel'
43.65 1 drupal_lookup_path SELECT dst FROM te_url_alias WHERE src = 'devel/cache/clear'
41.05 1 drupal_lookup_path SELECT dst FROM te_url_alias WHERE src = 'admin/logs/status/php'
39.69 1 drupal_lookup_path SELECT dst FROM te_url_alias WHERE src = 'devel/reference'
50.73 1 drupal_lookup_path SELECT dst FROM te_url_alias WHERE src = 'devel/reinstall'
35.92 1 drupal_lookup_path SELECT dst FROM te_url_alias WHERE src = 'devel/menu/reset'
39.07 1 drupal_lookup_path SELECT dst FROM te_url_alias WHERE src = 'devel/variable'
40 ms on dreamhost vs. 0.1 ms on site5. Not even close. I think most drupal sites will have lots of 'drupal_lookup_path' calls, so these really do add up.
For me, this is sufficiently poor to eliminate Dreamhost for drupal. FWIW, the total page generation time at dreamhost is almost all MySQL lookup. The php processing times look excellent.
Now, if my site5 would settle down and behave I'd stop the search for a new host. Until that happens, the host-quest continues! Next stop for me: ubuntu server on a VPS at vpsland.com. I hope to report on that experiment soon !
Dreamhost
Dreamhost runs the database servers separately, and they can be very slow, since they are shared by many sites. Even on a dedicated server, the database is on a separate server and shared too.
Your best bet is to install devel, make it display the queries sorted by duration, and you will see what is the page load time and query total.
--
Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com
--
Drupal performance tuning and optimization, hosting, development, and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc. and Twitter at: @2bits
Personal blog: Ba
I have had dreamhost for a
I have had dreamhost for a few months and has served alright for me, although don't have sites with tons of traffic either.
You can always check ths status of dreamhost at:
http://dreamhoststatus.com/
recently it seems they have been having a lot of problems, power outtages, and what not.
I think they may have offered to low of rates and not be setup to scale at the rate they probably are growing.
They have been really good with tech support stuff and seem to be very prompt and have very short downtimes when they do.
The only other host I have used is 1and1 and absolutley hated it with a passion.
The site5.com mentioned looked pretty good, and I've heard plus/minuses about mediatemple's grid hosting services.
I considered Yahoo's hosting service at one point, but they didn't seem to have all the features that dreamhost did for the price so I went with dreamhost.
These are the sites I have running drupal 4.7 on dreamhost:
http://www.kkyoga.com
http://www.fingazandteeth.com
neither have caching turned on and each take a few seconds to load. When I first started using dreamhost it wasn't like that but like I said I don't think they setup to scale like the probably have been so in turn they are losing performance, and possibly customers.
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http://xamox.NET
PHP Versions
You might want to try switching from using PHP 5 to PHP 4 for your Drupal installations. I just recently switched it and started noticing an extreme change in how fast pages were loading. Very strange, yes, but I'm not complaining.
I have done that actually.
I have done that actually. But hasn't seemed to help. You have Fast-CGI support enabled?
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http://xamox.NET
How do I make my site load faster on dreamhost?
I read a comment that CSS and Cache optimization will help. How do I do that?
Thanks
drupalian
http://www.hangoutwith.com
Easy
Assuming you are on 5.1. Admin >> Site Configuration >> Performance
Nancy W.
Drupal Cookbook (for New Drupallers)
Adding Hidden Design or How To notes in your database
NancyDru
Thank you
Thank you. Yes, I have 5.1 and I did set my cache to normal. However, CSS setting is grayed out i.e. I cannot change it.
Any other tips and tricks to improve my site performance?
http://www.hangoutwith.com
Well...
The CSS box says "This option is disabled if you have not set up your files directory, or if your download method is set to private."
I assume you have searched the forums on Dreamhost. I won't recommend DH to anyone until I hear they've fixed their SQL performance problems.
Nancy W.
Drupal Cookbook (for New Drupallers)
Adding Hidden Design or How To notes in your database
NancyDru
Hi there
Are you using private download ? If you are, you cannot aggregate and compress your CSS files. Why is that ? No clue.
If I am not mistaken you will be able to read this information right on the performance page (regarding the restriction), but I could be wrong.
Caroline
A coder's guide to file download in Drupal
Who am I | Where are we
11 heavens
Thank you
Thank you for the responses. I did read that on the performance page. However, I don't remember using private download. I also have files directory setup. Still, it is grayed out. Do you know how I can enable it ?
Thanks
drupalian
http://www.hangoutwith.com
I just took a space from
I just took a space from Dreamhost and I would recommend to keep away from this host company ... it is not good at all for drupal.
What's not good?
What aspect of Dreamhost don't you like with respect to Drupal? I host several Drupal sites on Dreamhost and have found it easy to install, configure and maintain Drupal there. It is a manual process, unlike some tools they support through their web interface, but it's not too time consuming.
Some of the websites can be slow to respond on occasion. I'm not sure if this is the MySQL slowness mentioned above or a temporary networking issue.
The slowness is enough
The slowness is enough reason for me.
But let me say this: they have been quick and polite in answering my questions, and I really like their custom-designed control panel.
It's really too bad that I can't stay with them.
He probably doesn't like the
He probably doesn't like the extreme slowness aspect :).
I've constantly had it years ago, when I first put Drupal on Dreamhost, and by the looks of it, they haven't improved in this regard.
Never buy hosting from Dreamhost if you plan to run Drupal.
That's all I can say.
Dreamhost is so far one of
Dreamhost is so far one of the best in it's price range / features. It is a bit slower then some others. But at least it is amazingly stable and really backed up. (Except they had some power outages more then a year ago.)
But with my 6 years experience with them they are very good and competent. At least if you will compare to many other hosting companies. I had huge problems with Site5, Mediatemple ... name some other 20 (crashing sites, lost data, poor support, speed, outages...).
One other point: there are a lot of the physical servers at dreamhost of course. And they are differently loaded. So you can ask support to transfer you to less loaded http/mysql server. It worked fine for my clients.
Drupal Top Sites | Drupal Sites Directory
Cheap host
Hi,
Do you know which other hosting company would be better (faster) than Dreamhost for the same price ?
Thanks.
Try this
http://drupal.org/node/202401
Nancy W.
Drupal Cookbook (for New Drupallers)
Adding Hidden Design or How To notes in your database
NancyDru
Does Dreamhost offers MySql cache ?
Hi,
Do you know if there is MySql cache on dreamhost ?
Thanks.
I'm currently running one
I'm currently running one drupal 5 site, and two drupal 6 sites on my dreamhost account. At first I was very displeased with the performance, but after some work on configuring both my drupal installations and my dreamhost account, the performance is acceptable for my sites.
I have enabled both caching and css-optimizing in my drupal administration panel. This gives a very notably boost in performance.
However, I would say eAccelerator was the single ting that improved performance the most. You can read a few of my notes on the issue here. It's basically just a longer version of this post, but it's posted on one of the previously mentiones sites, so you could check out the performance as well.
Dreamhost downtime?
Dreamhost's SLA has never been too impressive, but their performance seems to have become really bad in the last few weeks. My site, and a few my clients sites have been affected. Anyone else having issues?
Would a Dreamhost Private
Would a Dreamhost Private Server account speed up the MySQL performance issues I've just run into?
Dreamhost MySQL performance
Dreamhost's private server system relies on the same MySQL servers as their shared hosting. In other words, you'll still be using the same MySQL server, unless you pay for 2 private server accounts, one for Apache and one for MySQL.
--
John Forsythe
Need reliable Drupal hosting?
fast reliable cheap place for MySQL server ?
Yes, they Dreamhost should provide free MySQL server when paying for PS!
Any famous fast reliable cheap place for MySQL server ?
Thanks
Other possibilities for optimizing
Hi,
If what this thread indicates is correct; that DreamHost always runs the same backend mysql servers for dedicated vs. shared then you probably won't get a defacto increase in performance. However, it may be worth investigating and maybe benchmarkng if they'll let you install your own mysql instance on a VPS. Any good dedicated hardware should be just that, dedicated.
If you are not already using the boost module, this would be the first place to start. Boost takes the load off the database by caching pages in the filesystem as opposed to the database, thus Drupal doesn't need to use the database when serving anonymous role pages.
If you get a dedicated system you would be able to also look into other optimizations like a php opcode cache.
Hope this helps.
-------------------------------------------
Sam Tresler
http://www.advomatic.com/
does this help? an article
does this help? an article about speeding up drupal 5.x on dreamhost a lot of the slowness i found was due to the excessive mysql calls