Is it worth it to apply a cdn to static media on a production site?

Question

Pretty much all of our sites are setup the standard mod_php, apache2, LAMP style with the static media living on the same domain as the dynamic php scripts.

I'm wondering if there are any practical benefits to actually switching to a cdn? If I'm not really having issues with my server performance, is it really worth it? ( Our servers typically house 20-25 hotel sites, there are hundreds of images ).

Isn't there more disadvantages by storing it on a cdn, since if you are making content updates and have your content ( lets say we're using xml and not database ) on your primary server, you'd have to upload both on the cdn and link to it through your main site's css/markup?

Answer 1

The real question is how quickly the site is rendering for remote users. One of the main benefits of a CDN is moving large files close to the people that will consume them.

There are various services that will measure the performance of your pages from various geographical locations and give you an idea of whether your more remote users are having performance issues.