VPS Host Recommendations?

[Kimball Larsen]

Well, specifically, I'm trying to find a happy place for a Magento  
install.

Magento is a web store, that makes heavy use of templates and many  
layers of dynamic content generation to build its pages.  For example,  
to load the homepage of a magento store, you'll execute > 350  
individual php scripts, and there are some functions that will be hit  
 > 17k times (yes, THOUSAND).

I first set up our store on a shared hosting space on hostmonster -  
the homepage was taking between 15-30 seconds to load.  Goodbye  
customers.
I then set up an install on my new home server that I just built up  
last week - it's an intel Core2Duo @ 3ghz with 4GB of ram, and a  
7200RPM 1GB drive.  I was planning to just use it to host my personal  
stuff as my home servers have done in the past, but for comparison I  
loaded Magento up on it.
That got the homepage loading down to about 8 seconds or so, after I  
heavily tweaked both the php and mysql installs on the box.

Still - 8 seconds is too long for me.

So I went shopping around - I checked into Verio a bit, but ultimately  
decided to go with Crucial, because they have plans that are centered  
around a Magento store, and have support staff dedicated to helping  
squish magento problems.

When I first installed everything on their servers this afternoon, the  
homepage load times were down around about 6 seconds - so a little  
better than my home box, but still not in the 2-3 second range I'm  
shooting for.  I contacted their support and had a response back in a  
just a few minutes about possible causes.  I've looked into 2 of the  
items they suggested, which both turned out to be problems.  They've  
been corrected and the homepage loads in 3-4 seconds now.  I'll have  
to look into the other items they suggested tonight to see what else  
can be done, but other Magento stores on the same box that I'm on run  
very fast.

So, I'm happy with Crucial so far - $25/month for their "Split  
Shared"[1] account seems perfect for my needs.

Thanks everyone, for the input.

[1]: http://www.crucialwebhost.com/hosting/split-shared/

- Kimball
http://www.kimballlarsen.com

On Apr 28, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Brandon Stout wrote:

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> Daniel C. wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Kimball Larsen
>> <kimball at kimballlarsen.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Can anyone make a recommendation for a VPS (Virtual Private  
>>> Server) hosting
>>> account?  I'm setting up a new site, and need ssl, static IP, etc,  
>>> and am
>>> looking for a relatively beefy server to boot.
>>>
>>
>> I was going to say Linode until you said "beefy", which made me think
>> one of Verio's VPS's might be better.
>
> I can offer any of Verio's products for significantly less through my
> business Stout Hosting LLC.  I resale Verio products for a significant
> discount.  Contact me off list if you want more details.  I also  
> partner
> with Jonathan Duncan and Blue Sun Hosting, so you can contact him with
> questions about his hosting plans.
>
> Brandon
>
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