I'm running a classifieds website on a Linode 720 package with Ubuntu 8.04 (i'm sticking with the OS). The box currently performs the following:

- web server (apache + php5)
- db server (mysql)
- outgoing mailer (postfix, NO INBOUND)

All other services, i'm offloading them to externals (DNS on linode, inbound mail on gmail, stat counting on w3counter, etc).

The app accepts classifieds, images, image resizing and thumb generation, full-text sql searches, periodic stamp checking for expired ads, etc.

The site does quite a lot and is starting to pick up in traffic. I'm now thinking of getting another linode account (maybe 360?) but not sure which one. I want to move the webserver to that new linode but not sure if 360 will be enough.

Can you guys give me pointers on how to assess my requirements and what performance aspects i need to look into before getting a new node?

Before you go that far, I would recommend you check out using the nginx webserver. You'll probably save yourself a machine that way.

Here are some success stories:

http://drupal.org/node/110224
http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php ... sionID=945

If you poke around my Delicious bookmark page (http://delicious.com/dmuth/nginx), I have links to some sites with sample nginx configs.

Oh, for measuring performance, a good package to start with would be Munin. Just "apt-get install munin" to get it installed.

Then set up your webserver so that /munin on your site points to /var/www/munin/ so you can view the graphs over the web.

Also Mysql is a resource hog, maybe look at postgresql it runs smaller I think