I am having roughly the same problem, only I think I get the prize for most over-used board!
I am currently running a
dell 1400 server with dual 667s and half gig of memory. It is on a software raid array running RedHat 7.0 though.
I have over 7000 very active members and generate about 6,000,000 page views a month. (about 25-50K new post a week)
Well this is causing the server some serious problems. I'm seeing a constant load of about 5-15 with the search function disabled, with it enabled the load spikes up to about 30-60.
The server was previously running 5.47 and had a load of about 3-5 before the upgrade. How can the new code have this much more overhead?
Basically I need suggestions. Short of moving to a quad processor, which I obviously can't afford.
Please help... I need some ideas here.
EDIT: I just reread you post and you stated that I/O was the largest problem... how much of a performance increase would I get from using a hardware raid rather than a software? Becuase $1000 for a raid card sounds a whole lot better then buying a quad server.
-Nick
http://www.i-club.com/
