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Hasty Treat - What makes a server fast?

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about how to make servers fast!

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Show Notes

3:58 - Ram / Memory

  • Things like variables, functions, callstacks, application cache, sessions are all stored in memory
  • Large processes can eat up lots of memory
  • Reading 1,000,000 lines of a CSV
  • npm installing
  • Swap Memory
  • If your node application is limited by memory, it will crash or wait longer for memory to be freed up (garbage collection)
  • Garbage collection can take up CPU resourced
  • High-performance databases

7:52 - CPU

  • The processor on your server - the brains of the computer
  • A task - like 1 + 1, or function handleClick(), takes CPU time - the faster the processor, and the more cores it has, the faster it can think and perform these tasks
  • A faster CPU means your node app will start more quickly

9:26 - GPU

  • Most servers don’t have a GPU
  • GPUs are not only good for graphics, but they are great at solving complex tasks
  • Bitcoin mining is fast on a GPU
  • Machine Learning

11:47 - Disk Space

  • SSD vs HDD
  • The files have to be read from the hard drive and served up to the web server - the hard drive speed determines how fast they can be read, and how fast they can be written
  • SSD is more expensive but makes for a much faster application
  • HDD is cheaper and is better for storing larger files that aren’t as time-sensitive
  • An SSD will mean your node app will start faster and serve up files more quickly
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