Data storage choice - which one is better and why?

[Gauravk]

We have been using filesystem for sometime and just updated to 4.5 and wondering with new description under data storage tab, which one is more advisable for faster, yet stable performance.

• Filesystem
• MySQL
• Redis

We are on 64 gb dedicated server for single site with regular peak traffic during certain hours of the day.

[Gauravk]

Any preference here....?

[ptprog]

From what I can see, in recent versions you either use Redis for "Data Storage Method", or you won't be able to select any "Caching Method" (i.e. to use Redis as "Caching Method", you also need to use Redis as "Data Storage Method").  So, I guess Redis is the way to go.

[Gauravk]

Does anyone else suggest redis too or mysql?

Please help.

[CoffeeCake]

These are decisions that require a technical understanding and cannot be realistically answered within the scope of a post here. Depending on a multitude of factors, the best choice may vary and IPS gives flexibility in that regard.

If you don't understand something, don't use it until you do.

If you do not have the personal time or skillset to seek out and obtain an understanding of these things, then consider hiring someone who does:

https://invisioncommunity.com/third-party/providers/

[Gauravk]

13 minutes ago, CoffeeCake said:

Depending on a multitude of factors, the best choice may vary and IPS gives flexibility in that regard.

Appreciate to hear those multitude of factors so that I can invest time to understand what works best in our case.

[Thomas P]

Hi Gauravk,

we use Redis since quite a while. For bigger forums with lots of concurrent sessions I'd say it's the way to go.
Try those settings for one week and measure your pageload with GTMetrix, Pingdom or Webpagetest.org.
If Redis has an impact on server load or on pageload, you will notice it.

Another server service you could have a look into is elasticsearch, this will offload your search index from MySQL to a dedicated search service.

In our setup every task I can take away from MySQL, such as caching or searching, helps to have a faster, smaller database.

Regards,
Thomas

Edited April 20, 2021 by Thomas P

[Gauravk]

Thanks @Thomas P much appreciate your advises, and that's what I was looking to experiment to find what works best in our case.

We have recently moved to a new server that does handle previously spiking load very well so far and always loading pages under 2 sec with data storage setup. But I need to spend time and research and test various settings to be ready for the future.

Can you please explain what do you mean by "smaller database". How can we control that size?

[CoffeeCake]

18 minutes ago, Gauravk said:

Appreciate to hear those multitude of factors so that I can invest time to understand what works best in our case.

Practically every allocated resource and configuration on your server(s), your community's usage of various features, resources allocated/consumed by the various services and tools powering your community, your community's guest to member ratio, and the design and architecture of your server(s) setup.

[Thomas P]

5 minutes ago, Gauravk said:

Can you please explain what do you mean by "smaller database". How can we control that size?

There are various options to keep the DB small, in the context of server optimization using Redis for caching instead of MySQL and Elasticsearch instead of a MySQL search index helps. So if you don't use the caching method MySQL and for example not the MySQL search index, both keeps your database smaller. 

[ptprog]

I haven't looked in detail about how IPS uses cache (e.g. how expensive to compute are the values cached), but with the reduced number of options we have now, and assuming you have spare memory available, I expect Redis to be a safe bet.

 

IPS can achieve very high cache hit ratios.  So, my expectation is that using cache will improve performance.  Since now using cache requires using Redis for data storage, I would be surprised if any other data storage option was better.  Again, I'm assuming you have spare memory in your server.

Also, as @Thomas P mentioned above, using Elasticsearch for search may be a better change to start with.

 

Out of curiosity, what is the current size of you DB?

[Gauravk]

5 hours ago, ptprog said:

Out of curiosity, what is the current size of you DB?

Around 2 GB

[ptprog]

6 hours ago, Gauravk said:

Around 2 GB

Ok, so you certainly have spare memory available on you server 😄

You should try Redis.  If you have some analytics solution, you should be able to monitor the evolution of the performance on your site.