Opinions Wanted – 1) Performance 2) Database Setup

In addition to my “production” projects which use WP, I’ve also set up a bunch of test or demo installs, including a number of them for readers/posters of these forums. I have noticed a couple of issues, and so would like to pose the following two questions for the group/readers to consider based on thier own experiances.

1) Site performance. I know there are a number of factors to consider, ranging from server and hardware to plugins, etc, but recently I set up a demo site for someone who had an existing blog using another platform, the old blog had around 3000 posts, with an average of 15-20 comments each. After importing all of that into WP AND optimizing the DB (MySQL), using MySQL optimization tools/scripts, etc, the site was barely useable, pages typically took 6-10 seconds to load based on the WP queries/time output. I’d like to compile some statistics from users based on real world use, in terms of how WP sites are performing in terms of page load times, how many posts/comments site wide, average hits per day, etc.

2) Database configuration – there is a ton of material written by several individuals, available concerning sites/servers with more than one WP install (and I’m not talking about WP MU), and several opinions as to whether it’s better to use a single MySQL database with different table prefixes for each blog or if it’s better to create a single database for each blog. Again, the focus is on performance, page load times, average site traffic per day (visits/hits), total number of posts/comments per site/blog, etc.

Why do I care ?

Simple, I’ve written some material for the WP codex (documentation area of this site) on a number of topics which I’ve already posted there. I’m currently working on some updates for the documentation there which includes some “best practice” suggestions/alternatives/information on the areas noted above. Before I make the final updates and additions to the codex, I’d like to gather as much “real world” user opinion/feedback on the topics as possible, so that I’m not basing what I’ve written on only what I’ve done both personally, and for clients, using WP.

thanks…chris