Am I the only person who has constant time-outs on this site?

[Rysto]

@catsix

With anyone competent handling the DB, even an average inexpensive server can handle the user workload that a web forum of this size would generate. One of the major features of databases is that they are searchable, that they can be indexed, and that they can contain huge amounts of information and still allow you to find one sentence in seconds.

Before anyone screams about how big this database is, I can practically guarantee that it is smaller than the databases at customer sites that I work with, and less complex, and I’d be up shit creek (probably fired) if my stuff was as reliable as this.

Well personally I’d question whether you’re talking about full-text indices or not, but the point is moot.

The problem is that MySQL is a terrible database implementation and uses table-level locking. This is a fundamental and unavoidable problem with MySQL databases that no IT professional, competent or not, can avoid.