[QUOTE=Acleacius]You might want to for an hour or till you get it resolved, Turn off the Login Server. This would proabably help traffic flow and stalls, as well at tell you if it really is the Hardware.[/QUOTE]
The problem is our MySQL usage. vBulletin alone is eating up a considerable amount of our available memory, but it's the popularity of our searchable databases (the Oblivion equipment/spells databases, for example) that have brought the server to its knees. During peak times, MySQL runs out of memory. And because every page on the site has at least one call to MySQL, you'll start to see database errors when this happens. It effectively cripples the entire server.
It's not just our hosting provider that's recommending a hardware upgrade, either. I've brought the issue up with the vBulletin support team and, judging by our average server load, they're even recommending that we put our databases on a separate server. While that would definitely resolve our issues, it's just not an affordable solution.
Bumping the server from 2GB to 4GB of RAM would fix the issue, but my one-year contract with Verio is up at the end of this month. They always offer an incentive to renew for another year, and getting into a much more powerful server with 4GB of RAM doesn't cost a whole lot more than just upgrading the RAM in our existing server. Additionally, the upgraded server features a RAID1 setup, meaning we would have two mirrored hard drives for redundancy. I regularly back up our data now, but knowing that we can survive a failed hard drive without having to restore any data would bring me peace of mind.
The problem I have right now is keeping the website functioning until the new server is ready and the data can be migrated. I've already disabled our MySQL-driven ad script, but I may end up having to take some of the databases offline yet. If you find that GB isn't responding, please be patient. I'm just a one-man team
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/)
.