Server load times and hosting uptime

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Neil Cheesman: yes... I find that to be very useful...
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  Jim Munro: If uptime is your priority, I don`t think Paessler`s PRTG should be forgotten. There is a freeware version that allows you to monitor up to about 30 sites, I think. It`s bulletproof and constantly updated. https://www.paessler.com/prtg
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  Alan Bleiweiss: Here`s a sampling from WPT`s "Details" report (you have to scroll down past the visual charts to get to this layout on that report)
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  Alan Bleiweiss: And for individual audits, I run a sampling of individual pages using WebPageTest.org (Free), experimenting with server location, and DSL as well as Mobile 3G emulators, as those give the best mid-range connection types for most real world users. That test breaks down speeds for all critical data points, and the "details" report shows a line item list of all individual page elements with their multiple speed process times (Connection time, DNS Lookup, First Byte (server start point), Total download (overall server performance), and more.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: Hmmm... I don`t do any kind of ongoing speed data tracking. Google Search Console, under "Crawl" / "Crawl Stats", has an "average download times" report I check with every audit I do - the amount of time it takes their system to download the code for individual pages (the 1st step in speed processes). That data point needs to be no more than a few hundred milliseconds - anything slower indicates slow server processing issues. And when that number hits 2 seconds, it`s a red flag where Google is designed to abandon the crawl when it`s slower than that, for any individual crawl.
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  Neil Cheesman: Thanks.. how does that compare with gtmetrix? in terms of the tool itself and reports it offers