Using 2 servers for MySQL

Question

I have 2 servers for my website

• Web Server
  • For sending dynamic content, mostly created with PHP
  • A lot of RAM and a fast processor, only a few GBs of hard drive space.

and a

• File Server
  • For sending static content, images, videos etc..
  • A few TBs of hard drive space, not as much RAM and a slower processor.

I want to Use the speed of the Web Server, but the space of the File Server. But I heard the overhead of NFS will make it so slow it will not matter...

I will be using MySQL and I want to know how I should optimize the database so I can keep the data on the File Server, but have the queries preformed, and processed by the Web Server.

Answer 1

The advice you received is correct in my experience... running mysqld on one box and using a remote server via NFS for file storage is not very fast (if the remote storage were a SAN that would be a different matter).

You can reduce the number of times your database is hit and leverage the RAM on the web server by caching on that tier. Look into introducing something like memcached to help with the most expensive MySQL operations.

If some of your tables are small but used frequently, you could consider running a second instance of MySQL on your web server just for those tables. Keep in mind, though, that you will have two separate points of database failure that need to be managed (appropriate backups, security updates, etc.).