So after we’ve extended the virtual cloud server twice, we’re at the max for the current configuration. And with this crazy growth (almost 12k users!!) even now the server is more and more reaching capacity.

Therefore I decided to order a dedicated server. Same one as used for mastodon.world.

So the bad news… we will need some downtime. Hopefully, not too much. I will prepare the new server, copy (rsync) stuff over, stop Lemmy, do last rsync and change the DNS. If all goes well it would take maybe 10 minutes downtime, 30 at most. (With mastodon.world it took 20 minutes, mainly because of a typo :-) )

For those who would like to donate, to cover server costs, you can do so at our OpenCollective or Patreon

Thanks!

  • dystop@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    2 years ago

    I’m not an engineer or a dev - but requiring a 32-core, $2000+ CPU to support 12k users doesn’t seem like it would scale well. Is this normal, or does the fediverse require more computational resources than a simpler setup like reddit? How would a fediverse instance with 100k users be maintained?

    • Black616Angel@feddit.deEnglish
      18·
      2 years ago

      Look at the pricing!

      Hetzner wants 150€ for this server. 3TB disk is 50€ extra. So 200€ for the server per month. This is also about 200$ so 1.6¢ per user and month. This should be very manageable.

      Also it doesn’t mean the server only holds 12k users. If the server holds 20k users or more you Look at less than a Cent cost per user and month.

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      14·
      2 years ago

      Reddit is not a “simpler setup”. Reddit has gigantic amounts of computational resources to throw at things. Resources that make servers like this look like a Raspberry Pi. They’re just much less transparent about how the backend works and what they have.

      • jazir5English
        1·
        2 years ago

        Was thinking the same thing, is a lemmy instance supposed to be literally a single server instance?

        So I think this is what people have meant by vertical vs horizontal scaling in all these prior threads about the servers. Right now they are vertical scaling only, which means they can only run it on one server. Lemmy seemingly currently struggles with horizontal scaling, or as it is more widely known, load balancing between multiple servers.

        I believe this is on the devs to do list(someone please do correct me if I am wrong), and is being bumped up to a much higher priority considering the massive influx of users to the lemmyverse.