How to test server performance?

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This web hosting review was started by benz1 on 2010-01-08 18:37:30:

When evaluating a host, in terms of server performance, what are the important things to consider and how do you go about testing them?

The obvious ones are:
Location (how near to the target market)
Ping time
Download speed

Is it just a matter of doing comparative tests with the likes of Host-Tracker and Watchmouse are is there other testing that can be done?

What’s the difference between
Response time (Host-Tracker) and
Resolve time & Connect time (Watchmouse)?

The reason I ask is that we are based in New Zealand and currently have a couple of VPS accounts and a shared hosting account, all in the US. Our target market is mainly NZ but also the US & UK. We’re looking at another VPS account in NZ but the ideal solution would be a VPS.net style, multi-continent, cloud with a cloud in NZ but this will never happen, (although I understand they are planning another cloud in Asia). There is however a new Cloud host setting up in Australia so was wondering if this might be an alternative to an NZ VPS? Ping times from NZ to the Australian cloud is around 67ms which is a lot better then the 216ms to our US VPS’s but not as good as the 38ms to the NZ VPS.

Would be grateful for any suggestions or advice on testing.

Thanks,
benz1

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