So, I started poking around. It turns out (JAISP is laughing right now - I bow to his knowledge and experience) that the disk I/O was just flat out too slow.
I think I kind of predicted this in a kind of way back when you first were looking for a host. I do not wish to say anything like I told you but it really sucks when you have these problems.[snip]
Thanks for your remembrance of my comments in your other thread as well.
Well, as I said, you were right. And actually, it was your "premonitory comments" that partially drove us to dedicated over a VPS. I've actually seen a couple of times today with about 200 users/spiders total on the system where things actually "got slow" on our dedicated box. (Slow being relative as it was barely noticeable from a web page perspective, but the disks were certainly thrashing about from all the selects and inserts and the page render numbers were about double "normal".)
Anyway, I guess that was the point of my posting back here:
JAISP was right - VPS's aren't for everyone. However, that's not to say that a VPS can't be done right - it can. But, a VPS at a big name shop is hard for them to guarantee a certain level of service, especially disk i/o.
And as to recompiling the kernel on the fly: That's always impressive, but if you're going to be that geeked out, man, you've gotta go with vi over pico.
Anyway, as an OT side note, I've recommended you (JAISP) to a couple of different people lately. The radio thing sounds cool. Hopefully it works out well.
I have to sit here and think about how much $75k really is sometimes. I spec $70-$500k systems pretty much 2-3 times a week for my day job. It always amazes me that I can spec a system that costs more than my house without batting an eye any more. Corporate $ != individual $.
