web server with 512MB RAM - good enough what for?

Question

I am looking for a application/web hosting provider. I can see that I can have virtual server with 512MB RAM. It seems to me soooo little.

What can I expect to run (run means fast enough for users) on such virtual server?

I am after RoR applications. That means RoR, web server, database. 512MB seems to me so little.

Could somebody put some light on that for me?

Solution 1

I have a VPS with 512MB RAM, on Windows Server 2003 and running SQL Server Express. There are half a dozen low-ish volume sites running on it with a little room to spare.

Obviously, if I could afford it, I'd rent a dedicated server, or at least a bigger VPS - but for a few small sites this server is fine.

It really depends on what you are going to host on it... How many sites/apps? Approx what kind of throughput? How many concurrent users?

Do you have a guarranteed minimum slice of processor time? Does the package have a boost capability (ie. sometimes you can 'borrow' other user's capacity when their VPSs are quiet)?

It should be simple enough for you to rig up an equally-constrained VM to test on....

Solution 2

It's not Ruby, but we run a very heavilly used Subversion system on Windows 2003 on virtual server with 256Mb of RAM and it's got room to spare, never needs restarting (apart from updates, of course), and never gets slow.

There's still a lot you can do with 512Mb of RAM, especially when running a *nix operating system.

Solution 3

If you don't have much traffic or a huge database, this will more than suffice. Grow as you need to.

Comments

[markdrayton]

It sounds like you have a solution looking for a problem. Why not try running a RoR app on a box or VM with 512M and see how you get on?

[Radek]

well the question is meant in general. RoR + web server + database and 'just' 512MB seems to me too little but I have no experience with that so I hoped that somebody could comment on that...

[PP.]

How many users? If one, two, or even ten then 512MB is generally fine - your server will also use swap space and machines big enough to run virtual servers tend to have fast disks. As your website grows and you need more resources you can usually upgrade from the package you bought to a larger one...

[Radek]

I am thinking of linode.com I will start really small like 2,3 concurrent users for very application. I want to have few Wordpress sites on the linode too