I plan to build a big real estate portal like Trulia.com or Realtor.com. I want to use CI Reactor & MySQL InnoDB. I will do constant maximum optimization for the PHP and MySQL throughout the development process to avoid the headaches of later optimization. I believe this is the best idea (tell me if it's not).
To increase the speed & performance, I plan to use multiple VPS with cPanel:
- PHP Files & 2000++ SubDomains: Double Quad Core Xeon 3Ghz + 3GB ($100)
- 20+ Databases: Double Quad Core Xeon 3Ghz + 5GB ($130)
- 1 Million++ Images (50-90KB each): Double Quad Core Xeon 3Ghz + 1GB ($70)
- JavaScript+CSS: Externally hosted at Google App Engine (Free)
Total Cost of 3 VPS above at Unixy: $300/month Available Dedicated Servers at Unixy:
- Dual Quad Core Xeon 3Ghz + 8GB RAM + cPanel = $330/month
- Dual Six Core Xeon 3Ghz + 8GB RAM + cPanel = $360/month
- Dual Six Core Xeon 3Ghz + 16GB RAM + cPanel = $430/month
I still believe the multiple servers solution is always faster than 1 single very powerful dedicated server. Please advise me if this is not true. This real estate portal will pull thousands of concurrent MySQL queries, especially during peak times with 1000+ concurrent users online (target of 1 million visitors/month).
To increase the speed and performance, what would be your recommendation: One single Powerful Dedicated Server OR Multiple Less powerful VPS? I will appreciate every comment and opinion. Thanks for your time.
