nphxboxlive wrote

Hello there guys, Need a little advice on a server upgrade.
I have a server that lives at my sisters house [She got better internet than me by miles lol] And i have noticed i am getting lag spike issues when some of the servers are changing map and saving stuff from the high load on the HDD.
It hosts lots of game servers at once and gets hit with quite a lot of random writes, So i thought i should do a upgrade.

The server runs the following:

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2x Minecraft Servers,
1x Terraria Server,
1x CoD WaW Server,
2x CoD MW3 Servers,
4x CoD MW2 Servers,
3x CoD Black Ops 1 Servers,
1x GTA 3 Multiplayer Server,
1x GTA San Andres Multiplayer Server,

So that's what its running, Here are the current specs:

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CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3.0Ghz
RAM: 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM
GPU: nVidia GeForce 7300 LE
HDD: 160GB WD1600AVVS 7200RPM
MOBO: FOXCON G33M02 (Dell Vostro 200 Pull)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

So with all that said my question is, What am i best to do? Buy a very fast HDD, Or a SSD? I have been told the SSD may die quickly with all the writes the servers do :/ Thanks for any help

nphxboxlive wrote

RuLeWreX wrote First of all, what's your budget?

Well i don't want to spend a fortune on it because i don't ask for anything from hosting i just do it free, Its mainly for my youtube subscribers and livestream viewers to use, What could i get for about 80 pounds? It does not have to be a huge drive. I have been looking at SSD's on ebay and i found this Kingston one: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
But again, I am unsure what to do :/ Thanks for the quick reply.

RuLeWreX wrote Also, you better do a speed test at your sister's house to make sure that the speed isn't the problem. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Report back after test.

xplodingtaco1 wrote Holy cow that is fast internet! I'm jelly, I get 7mb down and 1.5mb up

nphxboxlive wrote

RuLeWreX wrote Also, you better do a speed test at your sister's house to make sure that the speed isn't the problem. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Report back after test.

Yeah, I know the speeds are not the problem its just the HDD. I have used [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] to monitor the server while playing at home [Team Viewer FTW] And the lag occurs when the HDD is getting written to or from - The broadband she gets is from Virgin Media, 10-15MS Ping, 75MB Download, 5MB Upload. And the most upload i have seen the server drawing at once so far is just under 3MB up, I am still going to contact them to try and get a better up at hers for the server for future as it grows and there are more active constant users. As for the RAID, Would it work the same as buying new dives if i stick in another of the HDDs the server currently has in it? Because i am almost definite i have another exactly the same somewhere, And i have sata cables hanging about (I build pcs and fix them for friends now and again lol)

RuLeWreX wrote

nphxboxlive wrote

RuLeWreX wrote Also, you better do a speed test at your sister's house to make sure that the speed isn't the problem. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Report back after test.

Yeah, I know the speeds are not the problem its just the HDD. I have used [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] to monitor the server while playing at home [Team Viewer FTW] And the lag occurs when the HDD is getting written to or from - The broadband she gets is from Virgin Media, 10-15MS Ping, 75MB Download, 5MB Upload. And the most upload i have seen the server drawing at once so far is just under 3MB up, I am still going to contact them to try and get a better up at hers for the server for future as it grows and there are more active constant users. As for the RAID, Would it work the same as buying new dives if i stick in another of the HDDs the server currently has in it? Because i am almost definite i have another exactly the same somewhere, And i have sata cables hanging about (I build pcs and fix them for friends now and again lol)

You wouldn't be able to hook up another to your existing drive for RAID. They'd have to both have no files on until the config is started up. The internet speed appears to be fine.

As a side note for a server owner, I would suggest that you insert a credit system into place to buy in-game items. The way it would work is users get a set amount of credits per kill, or whatever it is they're doing, but it takes a while to be able to purchase anything desirable. At this point, users really like your server, and will do anything for more credits. Add an option to buy credits. This way you can turn some sort of profit, and I guarantee your server will be more popular.