Does your ecommerce business system suffer from problems such as slow speeds, lagging responsiveness, or inconsistent availability? Adding dedicated virtual RAM may be the right decision, but in what amount? Especially for companies starting new websites or migrating their current websites from shared hosting accounts to dedicated or virtual private servers, webmasters may wonder how much dedicated RAM they need.
When it comes to dedicated virtual RAM, no amount is “too much.” However, purchasing more RAM than your system requires constitutes a waste of resources. Understanding your company’s unique storage requirements can help you invest in the resources needed to run your website and other virtual operations efficiently and effectively. Best of all, it allows you to allocate precious resources where you need them most.
What Happens When You Don’t Have Enough RAM?
When you possess less RAM than needed to run your company’s applications and operating system features, it causes Windows to swap out extra memory data to your computer’s hard drive. This results in a poor system performance and speed.
How Do I Determine the Right Amount of RAM for My Business?
Deciding how much RAM to buy can be a complicated process. Business owners must account for past and current use in addition to planning for future growth. Although calculating a company’s RAM needs may seem like a guessing game, several methods can help you make an educated decision regarding how much memory to purchase. These approaches include.
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Measure Past and Current RAM Use.
Several operational metrics can help you determine your existing space needs and evaluate how well they’re currently being met. Consider measurements such as:
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Traffic.
Your website traffic (including numbers of hits, unique visits, and total page views) is a primary measurement that directly affects the amount of RAM you need.
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Content management systems.
If you use CMSs such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, you may need to up your RAM. Consider how many modules or plugins you have installed and used, as well as how many authenticated users are logged in at any given moment.
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Operating system.
Whether you’re using a Windows Server or a Linux based server, the year and version of your OS presents a baseline of memory that needs to be met.
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Site format.
Consider whether your site is dynamic or static. Scripting languages (such as PHP) and SQL databases impact your system’s RAM requirements, as does the quantity and size of databases and how you use them.
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Control panels.
If you use control panels, beware of their resource-sucking tendencies and ensure you employ enough RAM to keep them running.
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Caching.
Using browsers and proxy servers to cache portions of your site, as well as static content like images, helps free up additional RAM.
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Other applications.
Firewalls, antivirus programs, email clients, and spam filters all require additional RAM.
Anticipate Future RAM Use.
Obviously, you don’t own a time machine and can’t predict the future. However, by asking yourself a few questions, you can make an educated guess as to how much memory your company will need in the future.
How quickly is your business currently growing? Have you recently introduced a new product or initiative that may skyrocket sales or drive additional traffic to your website? The time to procure additional RAM is way before you think you’ll need it. After all, the last thing you want is to drive a million visitors to your website only to have it crash. That’s clearly not the first impression you want to make!
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Use monitoring tools.
Although it’s impossible to predict the future, system tools such as Windows Performance Monitor help users monitor several crucial operating metrics. For instance, it measures the use of “committed bytes,” which represents the total amount of memory currently required to run your computer’s applications and operating system components. By measuring how much memory is used in diverse scenarios, you can get a better handle on whether your system needs additional memory, and how much.
The Benefits of Adding Virtual RAM to Your VPS
Are you wondering how boosting the amount of virtual RAM in your VPS hosting package can benefit your business? When purchased at reasonable prices, dedicated RAM is a smart investment that immediately leads to improvements to your system’s operations, including:
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Increased speed.
When your system lacks sufficient built-in RAM, it reveals itself through system speed. Between your operating system, applications, and traffic, multiple demands on physical RAM can fluctuate. At times of higher utilization, you may experience slower responsiveness – most likely at the times you need systems to run the fastest. Dedicated virtual RAM provides the memory your system lacks to prevent slowdowns.
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Improved performance.
Visitors to your website only give you a few seconds before they decide whether to stay or go. A sluggish site with pages that take several seconds to load is not going to entice customers to stay and make a purchase. With the right amount of dedicated RAM, increased traffic will be no match for your performance.
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Consistency of service.
When you utilize dedicated virtual RAM, it remains available to your business whenever you need it. Regardless of what other VPS systems are allocated to the physical machine and in what activities their users engage, your designated RAM ensures you will have access to the same speed at all times.When does this come in particularly handy? Consider instances in which you need to use multiple applications simultaneously. When both operations won’t fit into your computer’s existing RAM, virtual memory steps in to manage the overflow.
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Application responsiveness.
When your system employs sufficient memory, it means your most essential applications will be available and working properly when you need them the most. This remains true even when multiple applications with high space demands are in use.
As the owner of a growing ecommerce business, you must use every resource available to your company and keep it running smoothly. Regardless of how much physical memory your company’s computer systems possess, if your applications, operating systems, or website are performing poorly, adding dedicated virtual RAM can help.
At a reasonable price, dedicated RAM takes the burden off of taxed systems and helps your business run more successfully. By measuring your past, current, and anticipated use, you can determine the right amount of RAM to generate high ROI for your company.
Contact AccuWebHosting for further information about dedicated RAM and to find out more about what we can do for your business.