Why It Was Needed

Amdmb.com Server Upgrade Summer 2002

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

Sometimes the growth and popularity of a site can be its downfall. In other cases, the growth and popularity of a site are its strengths and driving forces. Amdmb.com falls into that second category.

Over the past 2 years, Amdmb.com has grown beyond my wildest imaginations to become my full time job and my full time love. While attending college on the side, Amdmb.com is my work and hobby, occupying every bit of time that is not needed elsewhere. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Going from a small site with only a couple hundred thousand page views a month to a huge site with a multi-gigabyte database with millions of visitors a month has been a cause for celebration, as well as spurred a need for constant upgrades.

With every growth spurt, I have been there to upgrade the servers that host the site, and this most recent upgrade was very similar, but on a much grander scale. If you have been a member of the AMDForums for any amount of time, you might have seen some messages and errors that are very unpopular among readers. Server time outs and busy messages were becoming common during the busy periods of the evening, caused by article and forum readers. Warren and myself had been tweaking the server setup for over 6 months now, and every time a new problem came up, we fixed it. And when the servers needed more power, we could siphon it out somehow. Not so this time. The machines were tapped out.

Our most recent server setup consisted of two servers. The primary server was responsible for all the site content you read including reviews and news, as well as all the forums. The second machine was a much less powerful server that was responsible for all the ads you see on the site that are able to keep Amdmb.com free for all the use and enjoy. The system setups were:

Amdmb.com Main Server

  • Tyan Thunder K7
  • 2 x Athlon MP 1.2 GHz
  • 1 GB DDR ECC memory
  • 4 x 18 GB Seagate Cheetah SCSI Hard drives
  • AMI MegaRAID SCSI controller
Amdmb.com Ads Server
  • Tyan Tiger MP
  • 2 x Athlon MP 1.2 GHz
  • 512 MB DDR ECC memory
  • 40 GB Maxtor IDE Hard drive
With these systems maxed out, I knew it was going to take a lot to be able to hold up the Amdmb.com site and allow for enough growth for at minimum another 6 months.

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