What affects the work of the site: about the speed and power of hosting

Each of us wants to get instant access to information. This is confirmed by research: procrastination is not encouraged on the web. According to Google Developers, users close a site if it takes longer than 2.5 seconds to load. The reason for the result is clear — the Internet is full of information and product offers.

Imagine you are looking for a business lunch delivery. Hunger is already creeping in, and your only desire is to quickly place an order and return to work tasks. Will you wait for one of the many shipping options to load?

Hosting affects the speed of loading a website and its overall performance. Less demanding hosting rates are suitable for small sites, blogs and promo pages than for working with loaded projects. When choosing a hosting, you need to pay attention to its characteristics — “speed” and “power”. In this article we will talk about what affects the loading of the site and why “speed” and “power” are different concepts.

The difference between “speed” and “power”

Even on the same hosting, sites work in different ways. It depends on the load generated by the site itself and the host’s ability to withstand it.

Let’s take an example. 20 clients host their sites on one server. Each has a shared hosting plan and one website. It turns out that there are 20 sites at the same time on the server with approximately the same load. Let’s say the number of visitors per day at one of them increases dramatically by 100 times. This creates a load on the hosting, and it affects all sites hosted on this server.

The client with the increased number of visits takes away the free resources of other clients on this server. The hosting capacity has not changed, but the client has affected other sites — their speed has dropped significantly. Monitoring systems of hosting providers easily detect such clients. They recommend that they find the cause of the increased load and eliminate it or change the hosting tariff. If the site owner does not respond to the notification and continues to use other people’s resources, then his site is blocked. This is done so that it does not stop other projects running on the server.

Hosting speed

Speed ​​is the ability of a hosting provider to quickly generate and serve up content on a website’s pages to a client. When we talk about site speed, we, first of all, understand the speed of displaying pages on this site. Site speed can be checked with external tools: for example, using Google PageSpeed ​​Insights or a special “Site Speed” panel inside the 1C-Bitrix: Site Management platform.
It is incorrect to test the speed of the site from the server itself, as this is too short a route for loading pages. The indicator will be high, but it will not correspond to reality. Indeed, during real loading, the distance from the server to the device of the site visitor, the speed of the provider and other factors are taken into account.

The speed is influenced not only by the quantity, but also by the quality of the content on the site: layout, photos, text, product cards. Slow site speed can negatively impact search engine rankings. This is confirmed by data in the news blog Google Webmaster Central.

The page loading speed for users may differ: it depends on the server load, Internet channel, software operation and other factors. Analytics services calculate the average time to display content during different user visits. Therefore, the indicator is quite generalized.

Let’s say a site is regularly visited by a non-target audience from another region, or one of the Internet providers provides a poor-quality connection. Such visits underestimate the indicator, and one should not conclude on the low speed from it alone. It is best to compare the results of several indicators. This will give you the most accurate information.

Hosting capacity

Power is the ability of a hosting to withstand a certain load per unit of time. For example, unloading goods from 1C, an increased number of visitors during a promotion, creating backups.

You can test the hosting capacity on the 1C-Bitrix administration panel in the performance measurement. The metrics are displayed on the Scalability tab.

A hit is a page view on a site. Testing will show the maximum possible number of simultaneous connections and the presence of errors in the server. A large number of hits and the absence of errors indicate a good power indicator.

Influence of hosting on site performance

Site operation depends on many factors — Internet connection, its speed, weight of site components, hosting settings, etc. Let us examine how the hosting tariff affects the site’s performance.

Typically, tariffs differ in processor, RAM and storage sizes. Everything here is like on a computer or smartphone:

The processor affects the speed and power of computing tasks. The faster the processor, the sooner tasks are completed. Processors differ in the number of cores — this is parallel computing. The more cores, the more concurrent processes it runs.
RAM allows you to perform the required number of operations and ensures that the latest data is stored in the cache.
The drive is responsible for the amount of information available for placement.
Note that the drive is of four types — HDD, SSD, SSD NVMe and hybrid. It is difficult to work with HDDs, operations on these disks are the slowest. On the hosting are not particularly found. If you find one, then do not pay attention to it.

SSD drives are at least 2 times faster than HDDs, so this type is more popular. We can say that the quality of work increases as many times as the SSD is faster than the HDD.

SSD NVMe drives are several times faster than previous types of drives. SSD NVMe is one of the latest generations of hard drives. This type is not as popular as it is much more expensive than SSDs. There are also hybrid drives such as HDD + SSD, but these are rare among hosting plans.

The listed drives affect both the speed and the hosting capacity, therefore, when choosing a tariff, you need to consider these characteristics together.

Comparison of types of hosting with machines

Let’s see how speed differs from hosting power. To do this, consider the services of hosters using cars as an example.

Shared hosting is a Ford Focus passenger car. It is designed for a small load: if you load heavy things into it, the car will go much slower. For example, 3 adult passengers with 200 kg of tiles for summer cottages will increase the travel time.

A virtual server can be compared to a van. It accommodates much more cargo than a passenger car. Good vans drive fast and are comfortable for the driver. They are adapted for moving around the city or region. But for long trips and larger transportations, you need a professional car.

Dedicated server — a truck on which you can transport anything and anywhere. Such a machine is not afraid of a long journey and a heavy load. If you need a van, don’t use a Ford Focus. When in doubt, start at a low rate and upgrade as your project grows. Think about a truck not only when you need maximum space, but also maximum safety.

Conclusion

Speed ​​is the ability of a hosting provider to generate and serve web page content. Power is the ability to withstand a certain load.

Site performance depends on the speed and power of the hosting, as well as server settings and optimization with 1C-Bitrix. If they meet each other’s requirements and work in unity, then they provide maximum project productivity.

Choose a hosting plan according to the speed and hosting capacity you need for your site. Thinking to take “with a margin” or doubt? Grab what works for you now and increase your hosting plan as needed. The main thing is that the site is available to your visitors at any time.

We wish everyone maximum productivity on projects!

Originally published at https://www.mivocloud.com.