Growing forum

[jrcal]

Hello,
I launched a forum a couple of years ago, which has grown substantially.

I'm facing a problem. I need to move away from my current web host, though I looked at the size of my forum and the DB is 301 MB.

I've talked with big companies like Interland (web.com now), Media Temple, 1AND1, etc. but the most DB space that any of them offer is like 250MB (which is an extra $40/month).

I'm not overly tech savvy and I don't want to have to manage my own dedicated server - does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can find a new host or hosting solution that can accommodate my growing forum?

I’d imagine that there are thousands of other vBulletin forums that are far larger than mine… so any growing advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[Steve Machol]

<Moved to vBulletin Hosting Options Forum>

[Mayers]

What you could do is get a dedicated server and hire a 3rd party management team to take care of the server for you. Please like http://www.platinumservermanagement.com/ can do this for a low monthly fee. I'm not sure what kind of hosting you have right now, maybe you could even look into VPS hosting.

[Thomas P]

I think what you look for is a Managed Server option, many hosters offer those.

[tacticalnuke]

Wait, the DB is only a third of a gig? Unless I'm not reading this correctly (probability: high) then most shared plans could handle that.

[jrcal]

Yeah the database is very big because we have a lot of the users upload images. I think there are about 2300 users and 111,000 posts.

[hornstar6969]

try storing your attachments etc. not in the database, that would then make the database small enough for any host to accept it.

[jrcal]

What configuration would I need to change to do this?

Thanks!

[express]

If you are moving to a new host, make this change after you get the db moved, in the past for large databases we have noticed it is easier moving sites when the images are in the db then when they are used as files. So I would consider moving site and then moving avatars and such to the file structure as hornstar6969 suggested.

[ThorstenA]

What you could do is get a dedicated server and hire a 3rd party management team to take care of the server for you. Please like http://www.platinumservermanagement.com/ can do this for a low monthly fee. I'm not sure what kind of hosting you have right now, maybe you could even look into VPS hosting.

I have seen recommendations for other companies. platinumservermanagement.com seems not to be that good.