Is My 2-Core Server Enough? Real Traffic Test & RecommendationsAdam C. |
On May 28, I analyzed one of my websites' traffic over 20 minutes to figure out whether my current 2-core setup was holding up — or holding me back. This is what I found.
🔍 Traffic Snapshot (20 Minutes)
From access_20min.log.txt, I counted:
~13,400 total requests
Many from bots: Googlebot, Bingbot, IAS
Many hits on SSR-heavy pages: /swimmer/, /rankings/, /records/
That’s roughly:
670 requests per minute
11 requests per second
📈 What a 2-Core VPS Can Usually Handle
Under ideal conditions:
~20–50 requests/sec (API or SSR)
Assumes good caching, minimal disk I/O, responsive DB
But SwimStandards also:
Uses Next.js SSR + Feathers.js API
Runs MongoDB aggregation per request
Handles bot load 24/7
Shows socket hang up errors and TIME_WAIT spikes
🧠 What That Means
You're operating at the edge of stability for a 2-core server.
Red flags:
socket hang up during peak periods
TIME_WAIT sometimes exceeds 300
MongoDB slow logs show query latency
High I/O due to bot hits on uncached pages
✅ Recommendations
1. Upgrade to a 4-core VPS if:
You want margin for real traffic surges
You want better SSR/API responsiveness
You want fewer 502/socket errors without blocking bots
2. Not upgrading yet? Then:
Move MongoDB to its own box (if not already)
Use pm2 scale feathers-dna 2 to add more backend workers
Enable Redis or file-based caching
Use Cloudflare or NGINX with caching to protect SSR routes
🧪 Commands I Used for Analysis
⏱️ View last 20 mins of top IP traffic
sudo awk -v d="$(date -d '20 minutes ago' '+%d/%b/%Y:%H:%M')" '$0 ~ d,0' /var/log/apache2/other_vhosts_access.log | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20🗂️ Count Requests in Log
wc -l access_20min.log.txt📊 Check Active Connections (443 port)
sudo netstat -anp | grep :443 | awk '{print $6}' | sort | uniq -c🔍 Analyze top IPs hitting server (bot check)
sudo awk '{print $2}' /var/log/apache2/other_vhosts_access.log | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20🔐 Watch Feathers <-> Next.js traffic (port 5052 example)
watch -n 1 "netstat -anp | grep :5052 | wc -l"🔗 View connection state summary
sudo netstat -anp | grep :443 | awk '{print $6}' | sort | uniq -c🧵 Check memory, swap, and load
free -m
uptime🐢 Slow MongoDB queries (on DB server)
sudo grep -i "slow query" /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log | jq -c 'select(.attr.durationMillis > 800)' > slow.log🧭 Final Thoughts
If your site handles real-time rankings and dynamic pages like mine, a 2-core box can survive — but it won’t thrive. The more traffic (bot or not), the harder it gets to avoid dropped connections, long delays, and random SSR failures.
For me, this test showed it’s time to move up — or keep scraping by with every tweak possible.