I have a website using Drupal and a TNT theme. Since using this new and highly functional theme, page load times have deteriorated somewhat. Part of the problem might be the graphical "richness" of the theme, but I really doubt it's that much more heavy-weight than many other Drupal themes.
When I contacted my host provider, A2Hosting, they said that our site was running out of connections and suggested considering upgrading to a VPS or dedicated server.
Because of this advice, I'm not sure what the problem is. I noticed the performance problems mostly after upgrading the theme. However, A2Hosting is saying that I'm just exceeding my quotas.
My question is when should I be considering upgrading from a shared server to a VPS or dedicated server? We are currently serving to about 300 unique users a day, with users spending about 5 minutes on the site and visiting between 5-10 pages.
My suspicion is that the source of the problem is the theme or a module I have installed, but I want to first exclude the possibility that maybe we have to upgrade our tier of service?
Could anyone provide a rule of thumb as to how much traffic is necessary to get before you really need to think about VPS or dedicated hosting?
Thanks
Comments
Good question
But I bet that the number is over 300 per day.
You are on the right track being concerned with a theme or a hoggy module, but you may also need to consider a different, more drupal-friendly, shared host. I have found ANHosting to be a good place for minor sites, and have just had a real nice experience with rackspace cloud sites.
Of course, on a shared site, you are at the mercy of other users on the same server, but that is only an occasional annoyance.
:)
If you don't have any problem
If you don't have any problem with your current shared web hosting service there is no reason to upgrade. I'm currently serving to about 500 daily users and my shared hosting service can handle it with no problem.
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