Max Hostees

[WebBean]

Hey all--my first post here--

Was wondering if anyone out there could help me with a Hosting question. I have started hosting a few sites on my own server and am just beginning to charge peeps for some services. My question is, what do you think the maximum number of HOSTEES I could host given that I my connection is a dedicated static IP, DSL Up to 1.5Mbps(downstream)/256Kbps(upstream)(best effort).
(this is how it is rated by my ISP)

My current server is a 1Ghz CPU running Win2000 Server with Apache/MySQL and PHP and an FTP server and Mail. (though if demand dictates I have another similar puter that can also share the hosting load)

Most of the sites content is not very resource intensive. I would not rate their traffic to be high - more medium to low. These are small outfits that are local to where I live.

I am looking into the faster conn (the 384Kbps/384Kbps or maybe even the 768Kbps/512Kbps) but I would like to know how many hostees my current speed (or these as well) would be able to accomodate.....?

Thanks for any input...'preciate it...

bean

[Compguy Pete]

You didnt mention how much ram your server is running either. This becomes a huge factor as well.

[WebBean]

right now I have 512MB PC100 SDRAM

[WebBean]

Just wanted to see if anyone had anything they could add to this topic...especially since I will be forced to host a few sites (3) on an older machine for about a week. Its an old 233Mhz with 96MB RAM and Win2000 Server. It will use same conn as mentioned in my other post.

I have been warned about running anything intensive like PHP pages or extensive DB queries but I am wondering how it will perform hosting otherwise. (I am in the middle of setting it up now)

[Nevermore]

I wouldn't chnce having more than maybe two, because if one had a sudden surge in popularity (or got loads of emails, possibly spam or an email bomb), the other would lose their site for a while and you would be liable.

[Compguy Pete]

Perhaps you'll find some other numbers on this... At one point someone told me 50 or so sites to every 512mb of ram, and at that time 1Ghz was the standard. However if they are high load sites I would say to try to keep it around 25 to 50 sites.

To be honest I have no idea how we ever hosted websites on 200Mhz Processors :)

[Nevermore]

256kbps upstream isnt enough for 25 sites. If each one had a visitor at the same time, and each visitor loaded a page with a larg (100KB) image on it, it would take 78 seconds to load, if all the connections were perfect.

[Compguy Pete]

cijori - You are exactly correct... I missed that part!

Your going to have to get that raised!

It's very hard to host sites off of a residental DSL line. The numbers I gave are off of a true T-1 or higher line(s)